Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http: //books .google .com/I

3 3433 07604169 2

-^

iS^^wMKmmii :

m

S

^p

^^^^^^

^

t I

N' i

» \

U\vA-*^::v N

THE WHITE MOTH

THE WHITE MOTH

BY
RUTH MURRAY UNDERBILL

The white moth to the dosing bine.

The bee to the opened clover,
And the gypsy blood to the gypsy blood

Ever the wide world over.
Ever the wide world over, lass.

Ever the trail held true.
Over the world and under the world,

And back at last to you, — Kipling

NEW YORK

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

1920

|M«M*A*tf

, -wV -

i50898B

.1

Lj

COPTKIOHT IQaO, BY
HOFFAT, YARD ft COHPAMX

V

THE WHITE MOTH

THE WHITE MOTH

CHAPTER I

Hilda was not crying. In fact, the whole thing
had happened so insidiously that she had not per-
ceived how dreadful it was; even now, for a while,
she would be able to look about and smile and not
grant it. So she looked about and smiled.

Within reaching distance of her hand was the
back of Elsie Rice. Now and then Elsie stepped
back, laughing, from the group around her, and
Hilda's white satin slippers were in danger. Then
Hilda moved, smiling readily. But Elsie never
looked around.

On the other side was the back of Janey Hubbell.
Janey's back was covered with tight-stretched white
organdie, through which there showed creases from
imdemeath: when she moved she brushed Hilda's
elbow with a huge white satin bow. A long while
ago Hilda had been interested in the bow, shaped
like a cabbage and pinched and tweaked into fault-
less rotundity. Janey's dressmaker mother must
have done it. But for five whole minutes Hilda
had been gazing into its convolutions without seeing
them, because she had nothing else to do. Janey
ivas talking to a boy.

(

6 THE WHITE MOTH

"And don't let anybody take the first extra!*'
The boy trotted away and Janey turned with a
look of glorified carelessness to Hilda. She was
going to say something! Hilda was going to laugh
and talk and be part of it just like anyone else!
But Otto Marks, racing by, caught Janey's eye.
"Hello there, how's your card, Jinny Jane?"
Janey turned away. Before Hilda could realize
the desertion she was walking across the room with
Otto. And Elsie ! Hilda should never have looked
away from Elsie's group, such a big one and it
concealed her so decently. Hilda turned in a panic
toward their sheltering backs. It was too late.
The group had moved away, putting between them
and Hilda a space of shining floor, not to be crossed
without audacity, inventiveness, or an invitation.
The time when Hilda could look about and smile
was over. She stayed where she was.

She was near the door, the sleek, oak-framed door
of the High School assembly room, which Hilda
herself had wreathed with laurel. The little draught
that crept through the hall outside brought her the
spicy scent of the green leaves, mixed with the odor
of floor wax and the cool cleanness of a garnished
room. Laurel alwajrs made Hilda's heart beat.
They associated it in Cato with camp chairs and ice
cream freezers, funerals, chiirch socials, and events
not of every day.
. Thia, was an event not of every day. The out-

THE WHITE MOTH 7

side door of the school kept slamming in a breeze
of arrival, reverberating above the sound of girls'
laughter and boys' voices in queer, restrained tones.
Outside the door where Hilda stood the girls passed
muffled and whispering. Ranged along the wall a
row of boys, all in white flannel trousers and blue
serge coats, blew cigarette smoke and talked in
nervous, jerky bass. Hilda would have given worlds
to be outside that door, careless, expectant, matter
of fact, with the evening to start all over again.
But it would be as hard to do that as to unlive a
year of one's life. She stood inside and the new
arrivals, unfamiliar, conquering, pushed past her.
"HeUo, Hil!"

"Oh, I think you look awfully nice.'*
"Listen, can you see my petticoat?"
"My dear, I think Jack's out in the hall."
The girls did not look as they did at school.
Hilda's new airiness made her feel shy, but theirs
seemed to make their voices higher and their eyes
brighter. Because their dresses were thinner the
girls seemed warmer. Each new bevy brought fresh
hope. They surrounded Hilda and she caught a
little of the warmth : she clutched her program and
began to forget.

But Fate was not to be fooled. Fate knew who
had been standing half an hour with no one to look
at her card, and who had just come and was en-
titled to a chance. The incoming tide split about

8 THE WHITE MOTH

Hilda as about a rock and left her where it found
her. She stood erect; even disaster could not bow
her square young shoulders all at once. But the
feeling that came over her was cold, gripping, relent-
less, a presentment of suffering such as she had not
imagined.

Hilda, you see, had not understood sufficiently
this matter of being "taken'* to a dance, when your
house was just around the corner. She knew the
practise existed, of course. Girls talked about it at
school, girls who had spent the previous evening
with a "crowd" and a phonograph, when Hilda had
spent it with the dishpan and the English history.
Such girls treated you as an equal in the daytime
when no boys were present. Hilda was on the dance
conamittee, of course, as she was on every committee
where there was work to be done. But her main
preoccupation there was orchestra hire and the
wholesale price of macaroons. About dance part-
ners she was unimpressed.

"/ say," Otto Marks had proposed, "no taking.
This is for the whole class. Let's just all go and
be — be — democratic."

"Sure," agreed Guy Nearing, the president.
"Let's make a lark of it."

Everybody voted yes. Hilda voted yes and
thought no more about it.

Now she understood. While, for her, the world
went on as usual, there had been notes passed to

THE WHITE MOTH 9

and fro in geometries and elusive words exchanged
at gates when people saw other people home from
school. The proposed democracy of the high school
dance faded into an unregarded theory and Hilda
did not know it.

Up to this very night at supper time she had not
known it. All day she and Otto Marks and Joe
Byers had worked like friends and equals, arranging
the camp chairs, banking the palms, stretching
above the stage the class motto, "Semper Fidelis."
Hilda had been tired and content when she left them
at the school house door. She had gone home to
supper with her younger brothers and sisters respect-
ful, with her mother pleased and hurried over the
Indian pudding, with the dress upstairs, waiting.
And while she was at supper the world had changed.

She had left for the dance early. As she ran down
her path, in the early twilight, with the scent of
wistaria in the ak and her mind on the refreshments,
Guy Nearing had called from his lawn next door :

"Oh, going, Hil? I say, I'll catch up to you."

Guy had not caught up. It was a graceful move
on the part of the class president to pretend that he
would come early and help imload ice cream freezers.
Of course Guy would try to. But Mrs. Nearing was
very particular about the looks of her son, and
modest drudgery was not the forte of the most
attractive boy in town. Hilda had entered the
assembly hall alone.

10 THE WHITE MOTH

She would have paid with blood now to recapture
her dasrtime sense of possession in it, the sense that
she had felt when she had raced from one end to
the other placing the potted palms and draping the
flags above the windows. Now she did not dare
move a step in it. She looked with humble awe at
Edie Rogers, the stupidest girl in the class, who
slid the length of the floor and raced Jimmy Malli-
son up the platform steps to tell the orchestra what
waltz she liked. The hall belonged now to girls
who had partners.

It was full now. Hilda's isolation was a thing
that she imderstood and that the other girls imder-
stood, but all around her the girls were pattering,
sliding on the smooth floor with little excited squeals.
Just beside her someone sprung back from a laugh-
ing group.

"Johnny, you big idiot, you just can't."

"Oh, poor sport, poor sport ! Who're you saving
it for?"

"None of your business. Hil, isn't he dreadful?"

Hilda was used to being appealed to on matters
of justice: she raised her blue eyes seriously.

"Can Elsie say she's saving it, Hil, if she doesn't
know who it's for?"

"Maybe I just won't tell."

"Bet you he hasn't asked you."

Elsie Rice blushed: or, Hilda realized afterward
that that sudden color was a blush. They did not

THE WHITE MOTH 11

do it much at school and she was not expectmg the
phenomenon. She gained a minute's footing of
equality on the basis of that.

"HU, isn't he dreadfuir

Elsie, little brown curls very fluffy on her fore-
head, white silk ankles in tremendous evidence, drew
Hilda aside in the sudden intimacy which belongs to
two girls in the presence of a man.

"Hil, Guy is coming, isn't he?"

'Why, of coiuw. But I've seen to the ice cream."

And then Hilda blushed, but she did not know it.
She only knew that there grew within her, until she
felt hot and lost and ready to cry, the understanding
that neither Elsie Rice, nor Guy Nearing, nor any-
body else in that hall, was interested in the ice
cream. Elsie moved away.

The first small, appealing notes of the violins
stole through the hall. Boys started across the hall,
girls stepped forward. As they brushed past Hilda,
her heart jumped and did not quiet. All of a
sudden the assembly hall became a place such as
Hilda had never known in the years of her life.
There was radiance in that hall, there was allure-
ment and mystery and delight. It was full of white
figures, but they were not the girls she knew : they
were girls going to dance with boys. There was a
stir in the room, but it was not the sound of feet
which trudged every day through the streets of Cato:
it was a surge to whose rh3rthm Hilda's heart stirred

12 THE WHITE MOTH

too. Even through the cold pall of misery that
enveloped her, she remembered that this was the
supreme night that closed her childhood. For as
far back as Hilda could remember, she had looked
forward to this night and planned to be happy.

There was a desert around her now, red carpet
camp chairs to the right and red carpet camp chairs
to the left, and, on a space of glistening floor, Hilda,
with her skirts uncrushed, and the breeze blowing
across the instep of her new silk stockings. She
felt strange in her new dress, tight in unaccustomed
places and not there at all in others. She had
thought, while that dress was being made, that the
one evening for which it was destined was fatally
short. She had wished in her secret heart, that she
might have a chance to stand for hours in it alone,
with her new white shoes and her hair done, and
nothing to do but feel the dress. Because, on the
evening of the senior party, she would not be alone.
The dress would turn her into a gauzy princess and
boyB would think she was pretty and ask her to
dance.

She was not a princess. She had looked into the
mirror before she came and had seen, a little dazed,
that her eyes were no bluer than they had been, nor
her hair any more golden brown. Yet she had on
the dress: perhaps unknown to her the miracle had
happened. To other girls it had happened. Their
petticoats were no crisper than Hilda's and their

THE WHITE MOTH 13

brown hair no thicker. But boys bent sleek heads
over their cards and placed arms around their waists.
Hilda saw, and a lump came into her throat, not of
the kind that dissolves with sudden tears. It was
of the sort that goes with a pounding heart and
cold fingers and a sense of creeping, untellable
misery. The first dance was beginning.

"Oh, my dear, he's there!"

Just in front of Hilda one girl gripped another's
arm. They were girls with unfilled programs and
they had been moving toward the wall, but they
stopped, a fierce light of expectancy in their eyes.

"By the platform. He's talking to Elsie Rice's
crowd."

The note in their voices was the war cry : it made
even Hilda shudder with helpless excitement.

"Welcome to our hall! This is our honored
president himself!"

The groups all surged forward: the lifted vioUn
bows paused. The girl in front of Hilda sighed.

"He is good looking ! "

He was. Hilda had always thought so, since she
was old enough to think such things at all. But
she never compared Guy with anybody else. You
had to think of words, perhaps, to describe Otto
Marks' sandy head, or the lumpy squareness of Joe
Byers. But Guy's black head, with the jagged dip
of hair across the forehead, and Guy's long legs,
which covered twenty times a day the space between

14 THE WHITE MOTH

one place of mischief and another, were simply —
Guy's.

"Fascination," the older women called it, out
of earshot of the yoimger. And the younger did
not bother with words for it : only the dance stopped
when Guy came in.

"Awful sorry. Honest! Say, who put up that
class motto? It looks sweU."

Joe Byers beamed. Edie Rogers, on tiptoe, poked
her chin over his shoulder.
"Doesn't it make you feel inspired, Guy?"
Guy thrust his hands in his coat pockets and
everyone realized with a start of surprise that they
were not blue serge pockets. They were gray : gray
jersey. Gray jersey was understood to be a grade
above blue serge for years in Cato after that. He
shot a mischievous glance at the waiting Edie.
"Not forever. I have to be — encouraged."
Edie was radiant: she wriggled free of Jimmy
Mallison's detaining arm. The raised violin bows
touched the strings again : Guy turned and made a
whimsical face at the orchestra.
"Wait a minute. I gotta get a girl."
Of coimae Guy Nearing could afford to wait until
the last minute before a dance and then proceed
light heartedly to get a girl. As he turned to glance
about the room, waists already encircled were with-
drawn, attention that should have been focussed on
partners went stealing away toward him and that

THE WHITE MOTH 15

roving glance. Guy took a running jump and slid
half way down the room.

"Hildare!''

The two rigid girls in front of Hilda stood aside:
everybody in the neighborhood turned.

"Where the dickens were you? Oh, Hil, I like
you tonight!"

The last was low. As she heard it, it seemed as
though a door opened in Hilda's heart. Through
that door she went out of a desolate, icy country
into a place full of sunshine, and the door closed
behind her. She answered him, just a little shy
smile.

"Let's dance, yes?"

Guy's arm was around her waist: he was dancing
in miniature already. Hilda placed her fingers on
his arm. She forgot that she had planned since she
was in the kindergarten to be happy tonight; she
simply was happy.

Hilda had never thought she danced well, but one
did not have to, with Guy. Her straight young
back jdelded natiurally to his persuasive arm; her
full tanned throat pulsed rhjrthmically; her gray
blue eyes, just a little below his dark ones, glowed
with a calm intensity from which one would not
look away, once he had seen it.

"Hildare, you look — sweet!"

It was a schoolboy word, but Guy had not chosen
badly. He caught his breath a little as he said it,

16 THE WHITE MOTH

looking at the sweep of crinkly brown hair and the
curve of apricot-tinted cheek. It did not occur to
Hilda to reply, even by a pressure of the sturdy
brown hand that was in his. But, after a minute
Guy said a surprising thing:

"You dance so weU tonight, Hildear."

The music had stopped and everyone stood still
in the middle of the floor to clap. The uncommuni-
cative orchestra, having changed their music sheets,
sat back ahd looked at the ceiling.

"Hil," Guy clapped joyously, with his arm still
around her waist, "IVe got to have a lot, you
know.''

Hilda smiled at that, just as though she were
one of the other girls. But Guy Nearing never stood
alone in the middle of a room except by choice.
People came sliding to them across the floor from all
directions.

"I say, Guy, what about speeches at supper?
Aren't you going to give us one?"

The class president considered with raised eye-
brow.

"About semper fidelis?"

"Well, you chose it." Otto Marks was very
serious. "And I think we ought to make the supper
quite — quite a thing, you know. Graduated, and
our last night together. I've got the seats all ar-
ranged with you at the head of the table and the
secretary," he nodded to Hilda, "and the treasurer
at each side." Otto Marks was the treasurer.

THE WHITE MOTH 17

The president was kind. ''All right. Might as
well, I guess. Where's your card, Hil?''

Otto, with a possible train of events in mind,
suggested hopefully:

''Hilda might make a speech too. She could.''

Hilda had been salutatorian the morning before,
so of course this was true. But it had not been
thought of.

"Certainly, Hil too," agreed the president, who
never had to safeguard his own honors.

But Hilda only smiled serenely. Guy's generos-
ity was not misplaced for it happened that, rather
than make a speech, rather, in fact, than anything
she had been able to imagine in seventeen tranquil
years, Hilda would like to sit by the side of the
class president, at the head of a long table, and
have on a dress that all the girls might look at, and
hear Guy honored.

"You'll be enough, Guy," she said.

Otto Marks went away sorrowing. And the class
president took the secretary's program and, using
her smooth tanned arm as a table, wrote his name
down for five dances. "And the supper dance, of
course." Completeness like that can come but once
in life.

Elsie Bice captured Guy after that, but Hilda was
not alone; the splendor of her recent association
hovered about her. It was with the self-possession
of a princess that she showed her card to the boys

18 THE WHITE MOTH

who came to inquire in Guy's train. It was filled
with initials without her perceiving it: the process
no longer seemed mysterious or weighty. The
evening was dreamlike, one triumphant progress
toward the supper dance. When Hilda stood clap-
ping next to another girl at an encore, she had a
smile of freemasonry. The girls' eyes were bright
and their lips broke into breathless, uncontrollable
smiles. Hilda smiled too, and she did not know the
light of happiness that was in her own eyes.

"Hil, isn't it glorious!" Janey Hubbell squeezed
her arm between dances. Hilda smiled back. It
was not etiquette to remember coldness at times
like these.

"Oh, and my dear, you've got the best of all!
We're simply wildly jealous. He never looks at
anybody else."

"Oh, Janey!"

"It must be wonderful," breathed Janey in awe,
"to have the richest father in town and everybody
crazy about you."

"Oh, Janey."

"Oh, Janey, oh, Janey, oh, Janey!" Guy had
pirouetted up, hair in ciurly damp streaks on his
forehead, a sense about him as of electricity darting
and snapping.

"Oh, Janey, what a nice big bow! May I
smeU it?"

"Aren't you crazy!"

THE WHITE MOTH 19

'TTes, I'm very crazy!" He was already keeping
time to the first tentative bars of a new waltz.
''Do you know that in one minute I'm going to grab
a girl and whirl right out of this room and right
down Main Street^ and I don't know whether I'll
come back."

Janey, imder his sidelong dark eyes, bridled a
little.

'Want to see me?" queried the boy.

Janey giggled.

And Hilda, while she stood in that luminous dream
that had enwrapped her more or less all the evening,
felt herself seized round the waist. Janey dropped
into nothingness as though she had never existed.

"Ha, listen!"

They were at the end of the dance, a dance that
had gone past almost without speech. Hilda wa^
often a silent person when there were no facts to
be dealt with; tonight it seemed to her there was
a fact, but there were no words for it. And Guy
was takmg it in sUence.

"Hildare, let's go out by the river."

His appeal was gentle, and more humble than Guy
was accustomed to be. His arm at her waist was
very tense.

Hilda looked at her white satin shoes. Walking
down a dirty path appeared to her a thing 3rou could
do in the back yard at home. The river path had
led away from the back door of the school ever since

€

I

20 THE WHITE MOTH

they had both been there. She might have visited
it with Guy on any morning or evening during the
past ten years: she might still do it in the next ten.
And tonight, for the first time in her life, she was
at a dance, with a dress she liked and her card full.
She might have tried to say this. But Hilda had
lived next door to Guy Nearing for nearly seven-
teen years, and during that time, the only occasions
when she had said "no" to him, were those when he
had offered to do something to save her trouble.

Her hand was in his arm. "Is it this way?"

They shouldered their way out among the couples,
a laughing, trampling crowd. So this was where
everybody went between dances: Hilda had won-
dered why the room thinned. In the glow of the
red lanterns one's white organdie was unimportant.
And yet, it was not imexciting here.

.When the creaking door shut them out in June air
and faint lantern light Hilda noticed that voices be-
came suddenly hushed. Guy's arm was close under
hers: it was unnecessary, for Guy knew perfectly
well that Hilda could walk sturdily, even with the
unusual handicap of white satin slippers. But
Hilda, usually the first one to point out such a fact
and save him trouble, said nothing tonight.

"What a lot of them there are! Let's run, shall
we, Hildare?"

That was imf air, for Guy was the champion nm-
ner of the class. But it was not a feat of endurance

THE WHITE MOTH 21

tonight, it was only that he took her hand and
they floated past the white, giggling couples, down
the smooth path among the elm trees.

"Gee, you scared me!"

At the turn where the lanterns ceased, they had
run straight into a glimmering white mass. It
looked like one person to Hilda, but it was two.

"Trust you, Guy, to be going further than any-
body else! WhoVe you got?"

"WhoVe you?"

Hilda had been going to join in the conversation :
she sat next to Johnny Ilseng in Latin class. But
at the thrilling, excited giggle that answered, she
was suddenly silent. This was not Latin class.

"Girls look just alike in the dark," offered Guy,
with deviltry in his tone. "Let's mix 'em up!"

"Guy Nearing, don't you dare!"

And if anybody in the world wanted him to dare,
it was the girl whose high, breathless voice broke
in with that.

"One, two, three!"

There was a whirl, a shriek, more laughter. Hilda
found herself bumped into that other girl, Elsie
Bice, as she had known from the first moment. And
then, with an arm around her waist, she was hurried
out of the turmoil, around the bend and into the
dark, where there was no light but the glow from a
farmhouse window, and the river, low in June, could
be heard rippling about its bowlders in the dark.

22 THE WHITE MOTH

"Can we sit down here?"

The voice was still Guy's. But Hilda had known
who was with her : it was quite natural to her that
she should recognize Guy's touch in the dark, from
any touch in Cato or in the world.

Guy often required of Hilda strange things, from
explaining; why he failed in Latin, when she had
forgotten to do his translation, to amusing him all
day when he was ill so that she must sit up at night
to do her own studying. Sacrifice and Guy had no
connection : just for a minute Hilda thought of the
white organdie which had meant a year's economies
and then she forgot it. Guy's tone had never been
humble like this. Hilda might have said "no" that
night and been obeyed. She sat down.

The sound of the river, in the little pause that
followed, was very loud. And though there were no
other sounds, the memory of music and laughter was
eddying still in Hilda's brain: her heart would not
slow its pace.

Guy had got down on his knees to dust off a place
among the pine needles. Guy was ruthless about
white flannel trousers: Hilda was thankful in this
case as she had often been before, that you escaped
the consequences of so many things when your father
was rich.

"Hil — "

He was still kneeling, just in front of her: she
could see the outline of his head against a twilit

THE WHITE MOTH 23

space of sky. There was a little lock of hair that
stood out, triangular, and at the sight of it Hilda's
heart gave a strangling leap. H!e said nothing else.
Hilda's hands, in her lap, were clasped very tight;
one of his was on her knee. Gradually, while they
both watched every motion, he sank into place be-
side her. From a clump of birches the little sharp
peep of a tree toad broke the silence.

'Won't they be dancing in there?"

'What do we care?"

She did not care: that was only an echo of the
things that had gone past. It did not matter that
this was Hilda's first dance and first real frock.
It did not matter that the river walk was open to
the citizens of Cato at aU times of the day and
night and that there were some thousands of hours
past and to come when Guy might have suggested
this very thing. He had not. And as Hilda sat,
very still, with the fragile pine needles sharp against
the unaccustomed silk stockings, she understood that
it was because this night was like none of those hours
past, nor to come.

Guy's hand, with the slender, straight fingers,
came over and clasped hers.

"I'd like to dance to the tune the river makes.
We could do it sitting down. But don't let's move
these hands."

A little later Hilda said : "It's the supper dance."

She was sorry her ears were so sharp. She had

i

24 THE WHITE MOTH

waited in vain for Guy to notice it first: now she
felt it the secretary's duty to awaken the president
to the task of taking his honors. She felt Guy's
breath hot against her hair: the violence of his tone
was startling.

"Let it go hang!"

He had her hands now: Hilda had given them
freely. He had never done that before and she was
very much aware that he had not. But Guy had
only to want. In the intense quiet that descended
with the withdrawal of the distant laughter, she was
aware of having been removed forever out of the
world where the supper dance was taking place, out
of the world where the river was flowing about its
bowlders, even out of the world of pine needles and
silence in which she had been a moment since.

Guy need not have spoken. In fact, his voice
was very low. It came after silence and it was
not answered.

"Hildare, we love each other, don't we?"

They were very close together. For a little time,
each sat absolutely still: not a motion, not a breath,
to distiurb that intense, delicate contact of shoulder
against shoulder and arm against arm. Then Guy
took a long breath and Hilda, dizzy with the sense
of imity, breathed too. The dark, still place was
filled with warmth. Hilda had, while her eyes still
saw black trees and gray, sliding water, a sense of
the red, leaping warmth of firelight, present but
unseen.

THE WHITE MOTH 25

She did not even see Guy. She used to have a
sense^ when he was near her^ of the slender square-
ness of his shoulders^ the quick grace of his hands.
She did not have it now. It was as if ^ to see those
things, one must have been absurdly far away.
She was not sure that the thing of which she was
conscious was even Guy. She was conscious of
warmth, of nearness, of her heart beating like that
of a giant, of a sense of peace and power together.

When she relaxed and leaned back for a minute,
with her eyes open to the cool line of tree tops,
she had realized that it was Guy who had held her
in his arms; that he was still a separate person who
could draw away, that his arms and heart were not
forever confounded with hers. He had not drawn
away far. It was his arm against which she was
leaning. But she watched his profile against the
blackness with something like terror, as though she
were learning the look of a man whom she had never
seen before. She himg on the motions of that dimly
seen figure as though they were incalculable and
she had no part in them.

Then, very slowly in the faint light, she knew his
head was bending toward her. She waited and, if
Hilda could have seen her eyes, their light was
intense, arresting. A shiver shook her, so that it
shook him, too. Then the kiss came.

"Hildare, we^re going to get married."

It was a long time after. Very blessedly, with a

26 THE WHITE MOTH

slowness that did not hurt^ the wonder too intense
had lifted. It was the Guy she knew, sitting before
Hilda now, with a few of the rags of mortality still
about him. He was cross legged on the grass before
her with his hands clasped over her knees : they had
used to sit like that once when they built block
houses together. Hilda smiled in the dark, her
hands warm and firm under his.

"Understand, Hil?^'

"Yes."

That was very low, but it told the thing Hilda had
understood best ever since the wonder began.

Guy flamed. "Oh, it'll be wonderful, Hildare!
Listen! I'm going to be rich. Oh, Hil, Hil, what
won't I do!"

He was up on his knees now, with his hands on
her shoulders. Hilda, tranquil, with that steady
warmth still thrilling her, told him gently:

"Guy — dear. We're young.'*

"Oh, yes." Hilda could imagine his grimace.
But he did not tumble out a flood of extravagant
words. He said, in a voice that caught a little,
that hardly sounded like Guy: "But — for you!
Honest, dear, if I work. Hil, you'll wait?" His
hands suddenly gripped her with trembUng violence.
"You'll remember? You're mine?"

"Why, Guy."

Hilda's voice was very low : the breathless amaze-
ment in it left him quite silent. Then he was beside

THE WHITE MOTH 27

her again^ his head against her shoulder^ talking very
fast to the folds of white organdie.

"Listen, Hil. I'm going to do something. Work,
you know. I want you to be proud."

"Guy—''

"Oh, Hil — after a lot of years — maybe nqt so
many — you and I — .• Hil, I'm going to take care
of you. Always!"

His tone was reverent. In all her life Hilda had
not heard from Guy that tone of purpose and
humility.

"I want my — wife — to be looked after"

They were both awed by the word that had passed
Guy's lips. They clung together, almost afraid of
the night and of the whispering universe around
them, and yet masters of it, too. He said at last,
with his lips close to her ear, his forehead against her
hair: "Supposing it was — years, Hil. Would you
think it was long?"

"/, dear?"

It was amazing to Hilda that anyone should con-
sider her part in a difficult undertaking. Her little
tanned fingers, elusive in spite of their strength,
went to his cheek.

"It mustn't be a burden to you."

"Hil," he clasped his knees and the vibration in
his voice made her quiver, "I think — I'm going
to be — the greatest man on earth T

Then his voice dropped to a tone that went to

28 THE WHITE MOTH

Hilda's heart, because, in answer to such a tone you
usually had food, or help or comfort to bring. It
was not a tone that women allow to go imanswered.

'Tou will wait, Hil? Even if I — didn't get
great right away and couldn't come back to you?
You will wait for me, no matter how long it is — "
Guy caught his breath and said a word new for them
both — "my beloved?"

Hilda Plaisted had passed an examination in Eng-
lish. Perhaps she knew the words "forever," "un-
changeable," "eternal." They were not needed by
such as she. With her hands clasped still in her
lap and her look on Guy's, she answered him and
gave everything that she had.

"I'U wait."

CHAPTER II

"And Mrs. Nearing^s jelly mould? VTl take it

over."

It was the very still hour of mid-Sunday after-
noon. In the Plaisteds' back garden the rabbits
were all asleep in a furry white mound behind their
wire netting, the birch tree stood, gold-green against
the sun, without a tremor of its feathery new leaves.
Mrs. Plaisted was just going upstairs with The
Christian Herald, after seeing the children off to
Simday School. Mr. Plaisted was already asleep
in the hanmiock on the front porch. On the back
porch, on the top step, with their arms about their
knees, Hilda and Janey Hubbell sat in the sun-
flecked shadow of the morning-glory vines.

"So, I think he likes me. We're going canoeing
today.*'

It was Janey, very formal, in a spotted muslin
with a high satin belt. Hilda, her blue Imen im-
maculate now that the kitchen apron was off, sat
in silence, her cheeks warm in the sunlight and her
eyes dreamy.

^^Hil," Janey snuggled closer, "Mr. Hearing's
frightfuUy rich, isn't he?"

29

30 THE WHITE MOTH

The pleat had been rumpled out of Hilda's skirt:
firm tanned fiingers replaced it. ^'Going to be out
late, Janey?"

"That remains to be seen," admitted Miss Hub-
bell. "Hil, what's Guy going to do? Now, I mean?"

It was obvious from Janey's air that the world
had paused in its endless revolutions while a class
from the Cato High School stood wavering in the
breathless Jime quiet before they plunged. They
would choose and the world would go on again,
accelerated. "Otto," she stated, "starts at the cloth-
ing store tomorrow."

Hilda gasped. She might have been expecting
the world to pause longer.

"WiU Guy go to the Works?"

H[ilda's eyes were luminous with the remembrance
of evenings on the porch steps, half real, untellable.
She had revealed, before she was able to revise those
dreams:

"He'll go away, maybe."

"Honest?" Janey was awed. "To Chicago? To
get in some big business?"

Hilda did not deny it. She only said, with a
seriousness that electrified Janey: "What is a good
salary? When you start in?"

"For Guy? Oh, Guy would get something grand !
He's awfully bright, Hilda, even if he doesn't study.
I believe even Miss Bajraes thinks so."

Hilda did not deny that either.

THE WHITE MOTH 31

"And," said Janey wistfully, "people just sort of
do things for Guy."

The wistfulness had its cause. Guy was very
catholic in his selection of the people he allowed to
do things for him, and Janey happened to be a
specialist in pressing botany specimens.

"They do things," explained Hilda, with a prim
little air of justice about her, 'because he has a
Future."

Janey made no attempt to discriminate on those
heights: she just nodded. "What do you think he'll
be, Hil? A financier, I suppose?"

But Hilda had other data. "Boy's don't have to
do just what their fathers did."

That suggested giddy possibilities to Janey. "I
think Guy looks just glorious in running clothes."

"He could," said Hilda, driven to it, and with her
voice very impersonal, "do other things beside win
athletic meets if he wanted to."

"Oh, Hil, I know he could. I just said that be-
cause — because — it's the only thing he's done.
But I think it was just too grand, the way he went
through with it, when everybody said he was too
light and everything and they nearly took him out
for bad school work! Wasn't he fierce and queer,
the way he worked at it, Hil?"

Hilda had reason to know, fierceness and queer-
ness not being concealed from a girl who lives next
door. But she nodded her head with a reminiscent

32 THE WHITE MOTH

smile, just a bit maternal, and more arresting to
Janey than any amount of maidenly enthusiasm.

"Guy," she said, "can do most anything — when
he wants to."

"I think it's stunning to be so stubborn." Janey
sighed. After all, she had to admire from afar.
"But Otto is more — reasonable."

"Guy isn't stubborn all the time."

"He thinks," said Janey with insight, her mind not
being on the subject, "of too many things he wants
to do. He can't be stubborn about them all." Then
she affected much preoccupation, "Dear me, Hil,
you have a caller."

Around from the front gate, beside the narrow
bed of sweet alyssum, there tramped the heavy
figure of Otto Marks. He sat down on the lowest
step, imposing in his blue Sunday suit.

"HeUo, Hil."

"HeUo, Otto."

"Hello, Janey."

"Aren't we grand today!"

"You and Guy going canoeing, Hil?"

Otto's intentions had been sufficiently expressed.
Hilda answered meekly: "We haven't said."

Otto fanned himself and looked across the Plais-
teds' back lawn. A syringa hedge, all in perfume
on the hot June afternoon, separated it from the
smooth mound where the Nearing mansion stood.

"Where's Guy been since the dance?"

THE WHITE MOTH 33

"At home. He was sick/'

Janey thrilled at the possessive answer. Otto
gazed mildly at the amplitude of the chocolate-
colored mansion.

"Gee/' he marvelled without envy, "work too hard
for exams and then get sick and have all the time
you want — !"

"Otto!"

Otto was not abashed. "Guy passed a lot better
than I did," he admitted. "And I worked quite
some, too. Well, Hil, glad I saw you this afternoon.
Janey and I have got a date on the river. Coming,
Janey?"

"Oh, I guess so. Will we see you later, Hil?"
Janey was clinging to Hilda in that access of affec-
tion that takes place when one is going away with
a boy.

"Maybe."

"Oh, I guess I know." Suddenly Janey put her
mouth close to Hilda's ear, her back ostentatiously
turned to Otto. "Are we going to hear of you being
engaged to a millionaire some day?"

This was extreme, an implication never indulged
in except out of spite or between intimates: it was
supposed to be a bad augury. Hilda's blush was
slow, enveloping. Janey waa awed, and as she
walked down that path by Otto's side she looked at
him with eyes more womanly than either of them
had expected.

34 THE WHITE MOTH

The blush had not died away when Hilda went
into the kitchen and took the jelly mould from the
tubs. She stood for a minute in the darkened room,
listening to the clock, immovable, as though it
were a world she must get up her courage to traverse.
Then she swung open the screen door.

They had wonderful sunlight in Cato. Outside,
the intense warmth and peace of mid afternoon was
flooding still green lawns and empty porches. The
path that she followed led through a little gap,
over which the syringas met. On the other side of
the hedge, the cozy utility of the Flaisteds' yard
was left behind. The Nearing lawn was very spa-
cious and very smooth, for Mr. Nearing liked to
have things neat. The back porch was shaded with
honeysuckle and beside the doormat a row of empty
milk bottles waited for the next morning. The
back door was closed, but not locked : the two serv-
ants were always out on Sunday afternoon.

The door opened soundlessly and Hilda pushed
her way down the darkened hall where the black
walnut stair rail loomed so enormous in the twi-
light. Mrs. Nearing would, perhaps, be in the back
sitting room and Mr. Nearing asleep.

There were more persons than one in the back
sitting room, probably visitors. But, as everybody
knew everybody else in Cato, Hilda pushed open
the door. It was Mrs. Nearing's clear-cut voice that
she heard.

THE WHITE MOTH 36

"I don't think you see the matter faWy, James.''

The voices stopped. Hilda^ in the doorway, did
not retreat.

The Nearings' back sitting room was, to her,
almost the most familiar place on earth. She had
had her place in it since she could toddle, first on
the green Brussels carpet, where she and Guy played
store with the bits of steel that Mr. Nearing brought
home from the factory; then in the tapestried arm
chair with the skirt of fringe where they looked
at picture books; then at the centre table with
the green flowered cover where they had done their
lessons. Every night they were in the first grade
they sat there, Hilda motionless and intent, with
the lamp light golden on a thick braid of brown
hair, Guy in a series of attitudes whose twinuig
possibilities none but he would have imagined. In
the black walnut rocker which she had brought from
the east with her wedding presents Mrs. Nearing
always sat and crocheted and interrupted spas-
modically with news about Cato. And at the big
impressive desk near the window where nothing
but household accounts were ever done, Mr. Nearing
read the Evening Citizen and waited to be called on
when the arithmetic went wrong. That was until
last week.

On this Sunday afternoon the green shades of the
sitting room were half drawn : on the black marble
mantel piece the vases glimmered in immaculate

_ . — «. .— —jMjaM

36 THE WHITE MOTH

order: a blaze of sunlight struck through the west
window and faded a huge pink carpet rose at Mrs.
Nearing's feet.

Mrs. Nearing was in the black walnut arm chair^
just as immaculate as she had been in church, for
Mrs. Nearing never changed on Sunday afternoon.
Very tall and slender, the donor of those lines of
Guy's, she sat erect, her black head with the waves
of gray, held conunandingly. She had spoken and
she waited for Mr. Nearing to answer.

Hilda had a perception that Mr. Nearing would
find it hard. He was standing beside his big neat
desk, an earnest, chubby man, half a head shorter
than his wife. About his round face that was a
little worn, there was something, as alwajrs in these
interviews, both obstinate and childlike.

"That's it. Moth! Go it!"

In the middle of the room, in the full beam of
sunlight which Mrs. Nearing had moved her chair
to avoid, Guy perched on the table.

**Why, it's Hildarel"

Dark hair on end, eyes brilliant, he leaped upon
her.

*'I brought the jelly mould.'*

Guy, having seized both Hilda's hands, had been
obliged to take the jelly mould. He gazed at it
abstractedly and shied it toward the sofa. ^'Hil!
You talk to Father!"

*Tour father is going to consider it, Guy."

THE WHITE MOTH 37

"I know. But let Ha talk too."

It was not the first time that Hilda had assisted
at family discussions: no one stopped a quarrel be-
cause of her arrival. Guy dragged her to a seat
and swimg to the table above her, his fingers on her
shoulder. "You'll make him see my way!"

"But, Guy, dear, had Hilda heard about your
uncle's letter?"

"No," said Guy sublimely. "Listen, Hildare, it's
this way. Mother's people have written from the
east about why I don't come there to college. They
live in the town. And there are lots more oppor-
tunities after you've been east. And I could come
there and get ready for this fall. And I'd have to
go right away — "

Words rather fell over themselves here and were
replaced by one of Guy's appealing smiles. "See,
Hildare?"

At that minute a chasm opened before Hilda such
as she remembered for the rest of her life. The
word "east" was not a common word to Hilda: it
meant a place some hundreds of miles away where
she could not go. And the word "college" meant
four years. They dropped into her consciousness
like a stone in the dark, seeking bottomless depths.
She could not speak just then.

Mrs. Nearing explmned softly: "Guy is at the
threshold of his career. I thought — "

*Tou thought I might get to be the smartest man

38 THE WHITE MOTa

in the place. (Jet hold of pots of money. Come
home with all sorts of jobs!"

Guy's eyes were dancing with elation. They
turned from Mrs. Nearing's, luminous and adoring,
to Mr. Nearing's, unseen behind their glasses.

Mr. Nearing had not yet spoken. He said now:
"No. We don't''

Guy's flight of enthusiasm was brought up short.
He eyed his father in silence, biting his lips, one foot
swingmg dangerously.

"One job's enough," said Mr. Nearing.

"Oh! James dear!"

Mrs. Nearing never raised her voice : all Cato was
perpetually astonished at the amount of meaning
with which she managed to charge those few tones.
Guy was defended and Mr. Nearing hunched his
shoulders with a submissive movement.

"You're not asking that Guy should decide just
yet what he wants to do when he has," her eyes
rested, glowing, on her son, "so many possibilities.
Surely there is time."

"His work's here, Mother."

Mr. Nearing's lips closed tight — and Mrs. Near-
ing's. And Guy's. There was no lack of deter-
mination in that family. After the dead silence, it
was on another note that Mrs. Nearing spoke. Her
voice had a haunting quiver in it, what Hilda still
thought of as a grown-up quiver. Hilda had never
had the feeling that could produce such a tone.

THE WHITE MOTH 39

"I think there is no use in being disappointed,"
said Mrs. Nearing. "I am > not saying anything
against Cato. You and I have found our work
here. But I don't see any reason why we should tie
Guy to it."

It seemed to Hilda that Mr. Nearing must be
wanting to cry, for that was how she herself felt.
And Mr. Nearing did speak, after a dreadful pause,
like an obstinate child, keeping its courage up. He
kept his head down and talked fast, just like Guy.

"When there's a factory within sight of your
second storey windows that goes by your father's
name and has got room for as many people as want
to put their noses to the grindstone!"

"James dear! At seventeen?"

"Why the mischief should I like cutlery!" Guy
had not got to the point of swearing in that house,
but his cry was passionate.

Mr. Nearing looked at him very strangely: re-
signed and dumb.

Guy blazed. "You don't inherit it, do you?
Just because I've heard about brass tacks and steel
shavings all my life" — he kicked through the table
fringe, his voice trembling — "I don't have to love
'em, do I!"

"Guy! Guy!"

Mr. Nearing said nothing. He looked at Hilda:
she felt as though he were seeking protection.

"Of course the business is awfully interesting, Mr.

40 THE WHITE MOTH

Nearing, I'm glad youVe talked to us both such
a lot."

Mr. Neaiing stirred as though that had helped
him. Guy erupted. "Oh, Hil likes steel tacks and
— boneheads or whatever it is. She's heard about
'em as much as I have. Let Hil go into the Cutlery
Works. She could cuttle."

There was a silence after this so bleak that they
all suffered. It was Nearing, mild, indomitable,
who felt it necessary to answer.

"She could learn. Anybody can."

Hilda put out a hand with sublime boldness and
grasped Guy's to keep him silent. He returned her
clasp instantly with hot fingers. And while they
sat, both too new, too abashed at that contact to
be capable of any words, Mrs. Nearing spoke again.
They felt little after they had heard: they felt too
young to speak.

"I thought we said, when we came here, that our
children should go east to college."

*Tou still set store by that. Mother?"

"All the more," said Mrs. Nearing. She left a
little silence in which the two by the table did not
dare to look at the older people. Then they knew
that her eyes were resting on Guy.

"I am hoping for Guy," she said," all the things
that we have never had, things that Cato could
never offer."

Mr. Nearing stirred, but they knew it was not a

THE WHITE MOTH 41

movement of dissent, nothing to combat. It sounded
like a person turning wretchedly in his sleep.

*'0f coxirse, Mother."

'We can give him this at least. There's no need
for him to work right awaj^'*

"No. No need.''

"Nor to tie himself down to one thing when he
has all the future before him." Mrs. Nearing took
a breath. "Is there, Hilda?"

Hilda's hand, when the need was over, had with-
drawn from Guy's : they lay side by side now, with
the backs just touching. At Mrs. Nearing's words
the two sat intensely quiet, while the vision of the
future, thus invoked, shone and became visible be-
fore them. They were removed for a moment, as
if on an island on a magic sea, separated from the
two of another generation by an expanse of beautiful
years: their own. Whether Mrs. Nearing, silent,
with folded hands, or Mr. Nearing, elbows on knees
and jaw set, shared or not in the vision, they did
not concern themselves. But Hilda, with the tears
blurring her eyes as they sometimes did on com-
munion day at church, for no reason that she could
understand, found Mr. Nearing looking wistfully
toward her.

"I think, Mr. Nearing, Guy ought to have his
chance."

"You do?"

"Hildear/"

42 THE WHITE MOTH

There was no attempt to disguise Guy's joy: it
was undiluted, it faded the scruples of the others to
shadowiness. Mr. Nearing brought out slowly:

'If he's got something in him, and this is the
way to make the most of it, let him go. I don't
want he should be hindered."

"Hoo-ray!" Guy's yell of joy was triumphant.
"Oh, geel Now you're talking! Isn't he, HU?"

And Hilda, with her heart-strings tearing at the
thought of that separation, quite as long as eternity,
answered the call.

"It won't be long, Mr. Nearing."

"Then that's settled!" The heu* of the house,
perched radiant above them, had not a backward
thought. Hilda remembered him long like that,
hair rumpled, cheeks and eyes on fire with the stuffi-
ness of Sunday afternoon and the heat of battle,
leaning forward as if to prepare for the leap he was
about to take. His eyes met hers, alight with
excitement and deviltry.

"Hildare, you gotta help me ofiF this table. I've
been sick."

It was not in Hilda to refuse a call like that.
But when he had her beside him, the pressure on
her arm was not a feeble one.

"Hil," Guy whispered.

"Do be careful, Guy dear! There, James, that's
another thing. Confining work at present would
be out of the question for him."

THE WHITE MOTH 43

"Sure it would!'' Guy leaped past HUda and
gained the centre of the room, seeking excitement.
His eye lit on the jelly mould and he seized it and
set it spinning on one finger.

"Oh, you hardware!"

"Guy dear!'' Mrs. Nearing was excited, but
solemnly, with an intensity uncomfortable to the
younger ones. "We're going to be proud of you,
I know."

"Proud? Sure!" Guy, master of his kingdom,
twirled the jelly mould.

"It is what I am going to look forward to,
my son."

It was amazing and glorious to Hilda that Guy
was untroubled. With the mould raised on high, he
laughed: "Oh, you won't have to look forward
long. Five or six years. What'd you like? C!or-
poration lawyer? Inventor? Railroad man? I'll
see about it. Just like that. No trouble at all,
Mrs. Nearing."

"My child, I hope— !"

Guy dashed toward her and waved long legs from
the arm of her chair. "Mother dear, you're awful
queenly ! You need a crown ! "

With an arm about her he poised the jelly mould
above her black hair. Mrs. Nearing's eyes on her
son were very full and brilliant. With tremulous,
sedate fingers, she waved away the jelly mould.

"Oh, Guy! On people's hair! Take it away
from him^ Hilda!"

44 THE WHITE MOTH

Thus appealed to, in the little things as well as
the big, Hilda advanced masterfully. Guy planted
a kiss on his mother's forehead. Then he jumped
from the chair and, tossing the jelly mould toward
the ceiling, marched toward the door.

In the hall, it was Hilda's turn.

"Oh, Hildare!"

His arms flew round her, lightly. A lock of hair,
heavier, smoother than her own, touched her fore-
head. In the darkened hall there was no move-
ment but that of the grandfather clock, whirring
before it struck the hour.

"Oh, Hil, aren't you gladr

"Can they see?"

"No. One every time it strikes. Hildear, aren't
you?"

Between the strokes of the clock and the soft,
fresh kisses, Hilda answered with utter sincerity:

"Of coxirse I'm glad."

CHAPTER III

He was going next day.

The water was quite black, except in the middle
of the river, where the tree shadows left a golden
space. Thrushes sang in the trees above the bank
and farther back in the meadows a cow lowed. Guy
laid the paddle across the thwarts of the canoe and,
with perfect disregard of Hilda's feelings on the
subject, rose to arrange a pile of coats and to find
himself a position crosslegged at her feet.

"Canoes aren't any place for love," he confided,
rocking the boat serenely.

Guy went very fast. For Hilda, that word he
had used was still cause for hesitation and a wonder-
ful warm fear that took speech away.

^Tfou^re going to write, Guy?"

"Oh, my darling!"

"It won't be like school, will it? Time for more
things than studying?"

"I don't have to study over letters."

"You don't have to study at all."

He took her hand and began to separate the
fingers, squinting earnestly through them at Hilda's
blue dress.

45

46 THE WHITE MOTH

"How you love to talk about working, Hildare!*'

"You do too/' Hilda was earnest.

"Yeh. I love to talk about it."

It was not real, a night like this. Nothing had
been real, during a fortnight when Hilda's heart had
grown as big as the universe. But because she
would not see him for so long, she ventured a step
toward the cool, clear-cut questions of everyday life.

"Guy! Why don't you like hardware?"

"I don't know, darling." He was talking into
her hair. "Because there aren't any people in it."

"People in hardware?" Hilda was humble, trying
to see just what he saw.

"Of coiu*se." He looked up from the hand he
was exploring, reluctant but with a spark of interest
in his vivid face. "I like to talk to people. And
get up things with them like the stunts at school.
But Dad doesn't. He thinks the world is just made
of knives and hoe blades walking around on
handles."

"But d — dear — you have to think something
like that when you're really working."

Guy was enraptured. "D — dear ! — Hildear !
That's what your name was really meant to be.
Then I'm going to find some other kind of work. I
don't believe you know anything about it. Oh Hil
— listen, Hil darling ! There's such an awful lot to
do in the world. I haven't seen it all. You wait!"

More from his voice than from the words, she

THE WHITE MOTH 47

understood. It had not been Hilda's habit to think
of the world as big.

"The things you told me you wanted to do and
the things you told your mother, are quite diflferent."

"I can think up more. Would yoxir ear be pinker
if I kissed it?''

"Five years," Hilda's voice was quiet, "isn't very
long."

"Oh, make it ten. You think I won't do anything,
Hildear. Yes? Is that a nice thing for you to
think?"

"Oh, Guy dear, I don't ! And I didn't mean even
to ask you except that I just like — to keep with
you. You're so much brighter than I am, than any-
body here. I'm glad you're the smartest in the
class."

"Oh, are you, Hil?" He was laughing, but his
tone was the wistful one that had called Hilda from
many an engrossing occupation.

"I'm not going to have you to do things for me
any more, Hildare!"

"Oh, Guy!"

Guy had taken her hands, he was leaning forward,
clasping them tight in his. "You're going to have
me to do things. Can you remember that? Blue
ffilda!"

"I can remember."

"An this month? All next?" Guy's voice sud-
denly shook, "Hil! I love you!"

48 THE \VhITE MOTH

To repeat those words after him was a task almost
too terrible, too mysterious, for Hilda's tongue:
she was silent, returning the pressure of his hands
with her own strong ones. Guy bowed his head
on them and Hilda sat, motionless, looking down
at it. The canoe was drifting, very quietly, down a
wide stretch where the water slid, with little silver
whirlpools, over the bottom of green moss. She
heard the gentle rush of the current about an up-
standing hunamock, she saw the bow push aside a
floating branch that followed them, bumping gently.
These things were very beautiful tonight, because of
her great serenity.

After a while Guy raised his head. "Why don't
you kiss me?"

Hilda caught breath.

"Don't you love me enough?"

"Yes."

The canoe swerved slightly and pushed its nose
against a log, stranded by the bank's edge. As
they grounded, Hilda felt a spray of maple leaves
brush her face.

"Enough for another?"

"Guy," the words were hard for Hilda to get out.
She flushed deeply and looked down behind her
screen of maple leaves. "I love you. I couldn't
ever love anybody else."

There was silence. The water, coming round a
bend of rocks, struck steady and loud against the

THE WHITE MOTH 49

canoe and the whole light frame vibrated with it.
With that, or with the beating of her own heart,
Hilda vibrated too. And through her hands, tightly
clasped with Guy's, the same rhythm se6med to go.
Guy said, quite low:

"I couldn't either, Hil.^'

He knelt in the canoe and Hilda put out a quick
hand to steady him. "Oh, Hil, you won't forget?
. . . It's dark here, I can't see you shake your
head. Put it where I can feel."

The head leaned down, frightened, sweet and
hesitating.

"That was the evening church bell, Guy. It must
be late."

"Oh, don't!" His cry was sharp and passionate.
"Put your head back!"

"I'll tell myself it's there, tomorrow."

"Hil, I'm not going away!"

"Oh!"

The rush of emotion in that word was too great
for them both. Guy, with his lips against her hair,
corrected appealingly:

" — after I come back to marry you."

CHAPTER IV

"It will seem like no time, Hilda/'

Mrs. Nearing, in the striped black and white mus-
lin which she put on for supper, sat in her rocker at
the top of the porch steps. She was always there in
the evening and Mr. Nearing was always in the
tall, green-painted rocker opposite. It was no un-
usual thing, either, for Hilda to be hugging her
knees on the top step between them. She sat there
much oftener than the son of the house.

It was cool on the Nearings' porch. Approached
by a steep flight of chocolate-colored steps, it dom-
inated Nearing Street: from behind its honeysuckle
vines one looked, as from a sedate mountain height
at the bungalows and the flimsy double houses that
had sprung up since the great man of Cato had
planted his stronghold among the daisy fields.
Nearing Street basked in the dim luminosity of early
evening, when the lawns showed deep dark green
and the color of the wistaria blossoms was visible
even in the shadow. Strolling by to evening prayer
meeting, neighbors stopped to call up to the porch :

"Guy gone, Mrs. Nearing? Well, well, I expect
j?e shall hear great things from him!"

50

THE WHITE MOTH 51

"That's quite a boy you Ve got, elder ! Is he going
to be president of the Works when he comes back?''

Mrs. Nearing smiled at this. Hilda smiled. It
was the aftermath, when the glow of vivid days
spent together had not yet faded. The neighbors
passed unanswered, because the future, with a
height and depth and glory that no neighbor could
unagme, had shone before the two that morning
with Guy's last kiss.

"He looks," said Mrs. Nearing, "so like my people I
The Van Wycks, Hilda. They have grandfather's
portrait there."

Hilda said : "Guy was always good in rhetoricals."

"It was a grief to me," said Guy's mother, "not
getting that blue tie. They didn't have any at
Pierce's."

Mr. Nearing, stirring in his chair, said: "I must
get that lawnmower oiled."

It was not usually the elder Nearing who mowed
the lawn.

Mrs. Nearing, with her smile intense, resolved,
repeated : "It will seem like no time, Hilda."

It was almost dark when the bell for prayer meet-
ing had ceased ringing. The smell of cut grass,
soft and pungent, rose from the lawns of Nearing
Street. Children's voices sounded clear and high,
romping in the last minutes before bedtime. The
street lamps came out very slowly, far spaced be-
tween the maple trees. There was no sound within

52 THE WHITE MOTH

the Nearing house^ no one else to come out and
disarrange the group so quiet on the porch steps.

This was the hour when one used to do lessons.
It was for that Hilda had sat on these steps, all
through the spring evenings, this year and many
other years, waiting for Guy to come bounding round
the comer of the house or down the stairs. Now
she had no lessons to do. For the first time the
evening chirping of the thrushes came to her ears
with its mysterious sweetness. The sound of laugh-
ter behind the honeysuckle vines made her catch
her breath and listen. Hilda was seventeen and
summer was beginning. There were many things
in the world to do which she had not yet done. She
removed her hands from her knees and sat up a
little straighter.

"Mr. Nearing, I have business to talk about with
you."

Mr. Nearing did not talk in the evening. He had
his silent post in the green rocker or, in winter, in
the carpet-covered easy chair. He spread a sort
of silence round him that made one's little bits of
gossip fade away. He looked at Mrs. Nearing,
when she moved her lovely hands, or asked a service,
with an earnest, wistful expression. He watched
Guy's vivid presence quite in silence. But ask him
a question that could be answered in terms of hard-
ware, and how eagerly he took it up, with what
loving wealth of detail !

THE WHITE MOTH 53

It was Hilda who asked these questions. Ever
since earliest childhood that had been the cause of
friction between Guy and herself. It was well
known that if arithmetic went wrong, -or geography
was bewildering, Mr. Nearing could help — but it
would be with illustrations about hardware.

"Now if I bought a hundredweight of steel flats,
Hildare, and I wanted to make a profit of — "

At a point like this, the wriggling Guy drew
pictures on the margin of the book or became ab-
sorbed in a chapter not assigned for the lesson. He
was capable of keeping silence for an evening be-
cause Hilda had asked what were steel futures,
Hilda found out.

"Mr. Nearing, I have business to talk about with
you."

James Nearing^s look at her was expectant, like a
child to the person who has never mistreated it.
There was a steady earnestness in his gray eyes
not perceived until he looked straight at one.

"Business, Hildare?''

"I want,'* she answered him, "to go into the
Works.''

"Hilda!" It was dark: Hilda could not really
see either of the other people, but Mrs. Nearing's
voice had a sharpness like resentment. "Hilda!
Have you spoken to your mother?"

Hilda had. The formalities of speaking to Hilda's
mother were different from those of speaking to

54 THE WHITE MOTH

Guy's, but the result in each case was the same.
One went on with one's plans.

Mr. Nearing hedged : "There's a place in Bishop's
law office."

The bearing of that did not need explanation.
The places eligible for young ladies in Cato were
in front of blackboards or behind typewriters. A
typewriter at a lawyer's office was cleaner for a
nice girl than a typewriter at the Cutlery Works.

"I'm not going to be a stenographer," said Hilda.

Mrs. Nearing nodded her head energetically.
"The normal school course isn't long and besides it
doesn't tie you just yet."

"I'm not going to be a school teacher," said Hilda.

James Nearing was regarding her with eyes
screwed up: "Don't like ladylike occupations,
Hildare?"

Hilda shook her head slowly. The Nearings had
seen her do that before over very little things, such
as the length of time the fruit preserve should cook,
or whether Guy's cold was in need of quinine. It
had been accepted as final. Now, when Hilda's
cloudy blue eyes looked straight over the syringa
bushes, under a forehead clean and undisturbed, the
two older people failed to oppose her. Mrs. Near-
ing's slender hands clasped and unclasped a little
nervously before she said:

"I had been thinking, dear, for some time — when
I knew you were going to graduate — whether we

THE WHITE MOTH 55

couldn't arrange for you to haVe a year" — the
appealing kindness of her smile made up for the
lameness of her statement: a statement of definite
significance in Cato — "just at home. Young people,
you know. And a girl is only eighteen once. I
remember myself. And I am sure you would be a
help to your mother. And then, who knows — "

"You were a sight more than eighteen when you
married, Laura," said Mr. Nearing.

The first lady of Cato gathered her eyebrows.
"I was. And I taught school, Hilda. I know. But
for you — "

It was dark now. Hilda, quite unacquainted with
blushes, was too untutored to be thankful that the
thing that made her feel so warm and giddy was
unseen by Guy's father and mother. There was a
bit of paper in her hand, pushed into it out of a
Pullman car window. She had no intention of re-
vealing the contents, three words without an en-
dearment. But they permitted her to smile softly
at the idea of a year at home and a marriage in Cato.

"I don't want to stay at home," said Hilda.

Mr. Nearing nodded slowly. He always waited
until the others had finished. It was his good for-
tune that there was, to-night, one less to have
his say.

"So ye like the Works, Hilda?"

One looked at James Nearing again when he
said a thing like that. There was something so young>

56 THE WHITE MOTH

so earnest; so genuinely single-minded, about the
middle-aged man whose likings would be sup-
posed, long since, to have resolved thenaselves into
opinions ! His tone was that of a boy with a thing
he loved.

Hilda answered him seriously. "I do. I think
I should like to go into the hardware business."

"Why Hil!'' James Nearing's eyes were wide
with a sort of incredulous joy. It was as though
he were hearing words which he knew by heart,
which he had never hoped to hear spoken by any-
body but himself. It was because of that, perhaps,
that Hilda had courage to state her case so roundly.

"I like hardware. And if IVe got to do some-
thing, I don't see why it shouldn't be the thing I
know best. I know hardware like Janey Subbell
knows dressmaking because her mother's a dress-
maker. I've heard Mr. Nearing tell about it ever
since I was a baby. I just had to like it."

There was a dead silence. Hilda was sorry she
had said that.

Mr. Nearing said, wistfully, "It ought to 'a' been
good training for a boy."

Mrs. Nearing sighed impatiently. Hilda, eager
and contrite both at once, tumbled in:

"It was. And I've worked things out and under-
stood just as if I were a boy. Wouldn't you call it
a start?"

"Why, if you were a boy, Hil — "

THE WHITE MOTH 67

No one looked less like a boy than Hilda, in the
pink gingham dress she had made one afternoon
with Janey Hubbell. It was the sort of dress in
which a woman waits for a man at the kitchen door
after the work is done, and Hilda's eyes were the
sort a man is glad to see. Mr. Nearing, perhaps,
thought something like this as he watched her help-
lessly. But Hilda's voice was serene.

"IVe been thinking about it all the year, Mr.
Nearing."

"Guy never said anything about it."

"Oh, of course not, Mrs. Nearing." Obviously,
such stupid things as how Hilda made a living were
not to worry Guy. "And I don't like what the girls
do that are stenographers and teachers."

"No one in Cato does anything else."

"I know. But I'd like to." Hilda raised her
serene forehead toward the perturbed and ladylike
Mrs. Nearing. "They don't seem to get anjrwhere."

"Do you mean to be rich?"

Certainly Mrs. Nearing did not like this. Hilda
had known she would not, though she could not have
explained why.

"Maybe not rich. I don't know if I care about
that. I never have been. But just to do a good
job. Not wait on somebody." She finished with
a sudden childlike outburst : "Mr. Nearing under-
stands."

Mr. Nearing did understand. His cheeks were

58 THE WHITE MOTH

glowing in the dark quite like a boy's There was a
fine craftsman's loyalty in the gladness with which
he received Hilda, without a thought as to who
might have come in her stead.

"That's all right, Hildare. You shall have the
chance any man in the Works would have had. I'll
see to it myself. I can still do that I guess. Do
you want to walk down with me in the morning?
Half past eight's pretty early!"

"Half past eight," said Hilda.

When she went back through the syringa hedge,
she still held in her tanned fingers the three words
which she kissed before she went to bed:

"Wait for me."

Hilda had her own ideas of waiting.

CHAPTER V

'Tou see the boys are on the job already. Early
hours here!'' James Nearing nodded paternally to
two young fellows in shirt sleeves, dealing with a
packing case in the yard of the Nearing Cutlery
Works.

"Morning, boys. Boyce here?"

"Think so, Mr. Nearing/'

There was a beaming kindliness in Mr. Nearing's
manner as he opened the door of his own dingy
brick building. He never welcomed to the choco-
late-colored mansion with half such happy hos-
pitality.

"Then I'll take you straight to Anson, Hilda.
Want to?"

They entered the creaking, dusty hall, shot with
shafts of sunUght, resounding with the noise of whir-
ring from the grinding room and of steady champing
from the forge shop.

"Know your way about, I guess, Hildare?"

Did Hilda know her way about! She had played
hide and seek with Guy and the other children of
the first grade, over every rod of the yard when it
was muddy waste piled with lumber. She had

59

60 THE WHITE MOTH

climbed, holding Mr. Neaxing's big forefinger, up
to the loft, she had stood for hours following the
movements of Mike Moran of the forge shop. Hilda
knew the Cutlery Works like her home kitchen.

The Works had not been built for convenience.
The building was a tong, rectangular one that
frowned beneath its sprigs of ivy in the muddy
vicinity of Cato's freight station. Time was, when
the Cato railroad was still a one-track line, and the
river, half a mile from the village, meandered into
imfrequented forest, when that rectangular build-
ing was the most imposing sawmill of the country-
side. The rhythm of Cato's progress subsided, then,
the farms were abandoned and the sawmill left un-
used. And at that juncture, the young capitalist
from the East, with his small fortune, his hand-
some wife and his eager ambitions, came to make
it the cornerstone of his fortunes and to grow up
with the town that was to come.

Hilda knew all about that past history. She had
followed the story chapter by chapter. Perched
on the arm of a rocking chair in the Nearings' back
sitting room, she had watched Mr. Nearing's dia-
gram of the old mill, of the first improvements, of
the additions that were to come. Told in that
simple way, it was like doll play to Hilda. She
began to think that she, too, might have been capa-
ble of bujdng an old sawmill, partitioning off an
office, bargaining for a few hundredweight of steel

THE WHITE MOTH 61

and bones^ haling in the farm hands from the
countryside and starting to make knives.

'TTou Ve got the idea, Hildare I Just be sure your
materials are all right and don't go too fast."

"Is that how to succeed?"

"That's how to make knives."

It sounded praiseworthy to Hilda, but the words
fell on a room so quiet as to dampen her pleasure.
They were all in the Nearings' sitting room that
night, as usual on a winter evening. Mrs. Nearing,
a little formal in her striped dress with the ruffles,
sat turning toward the family that fine profile of
hers. It was the profile of a handsome woman,
almost queenly, but with something about it ob-
scured, wistful, as though the queen had never had
a chance to realize her possibilities. You under-
stood the possibilities when you saw Guy. Mrs.
Nearing laid down her crochet work at her husband's
words and turned toward him a look contemplative,
resigned, with just a glmt of pathos in it. James
Nearing shook his round shoulders nervously, but
Laura said absolutely nothing.

Guy, stretched out extravagantly, with his feet
beneath the table, began to try to shake the lamp
by kicking it from beneath.

"I say Hil, I thought we were going to get some-
thing done to-night ! "

Mr. Nearing stopped short and looked rather
timidly at his son. Mrs. Nearing's face lit with

62 THE WHITE MOTH

a sudden blaze of pleasure as she watched Guy's long
fingers seize a handful of papers, cross out all pre-
vious work with a large gesture and start rapid figur-
ing. Hilda left Mr. Nearing and went to Guy.

After that the conversations about hardware did
not take place before the family. But they took
place. You could not talk to Mr. Nearing at all
except in terms of hardware. Mrs. Nearing accepted
this with resigned loyalty : over and over again, with
a conscientiousness that was pathetic, she asked
about the two or three processes whose names she
had learned. Guy accepted it and cut the Gordian
knot by scarcely speaking to his father at all. Hilda
accepted it and talked about hardware. And now
it seemed to her that she knew hardware. She
glanced about the mill.

"It's bigger. You've done a lot since I was here."

"Quite some," said Mr. Nearing shyly.

They were standing in the hall of the main build-
ing, from which the shipping room opened on one
side, and the oflSce on the other. The creaking stairs
ahead of them led to the purchasing department.
The building was dark, with irregular floors and
small-paned windows: it had unexpected partitions
and rough, make-shift doors where new departments
had to be sketched in. Over everything was a fine
black dust, but over eversrthing, also, was the Cato
sunlight, warm and friendly.

"Morning, elder, what's the good word?"

THE WHITE MOTH 63

Mike Moran of the forge shop stamped through
in his shirt sleeves. The mill was still not large:
the fifty people in it were Cato men, and where two
of them passed each other in the yard or in the
hallway, there was a neighborly jeer or a minute's
scuffle to relieve the feelings. Mike Moran and
George Stenslund, his running mate of the grinding
room, greeted the patron like friends and equals.
They were old stand-bys, on whom James Nearing
had impressed, like the law and the gospels, the
making of knives as they should be made.

" 'Lo, Hilda," finished Mike.

He was a friend of hers. It was long ago that
he had showed her his lathe and plane and made her
cognizant of what they should accomplish when
well handled. She felt lonesome at seeing him slam
through the door to his own little building out in
the yard, while she was led relentlessly to the glass
door, bearing the words: "Office. No admittance
except on business."

At the office door Mr. Nearing explained. "You
know Anson Boyce is our manager. I've always left
the hiring of the office people to hiii(i. So, I guess
it's right I should let you see him like the others."

"Of course. I didn't realize he had so much to
do with it."

Down here at the Works, Hilda was seeing a new
Mr. Nearing and a new atmosphere. Her friend
looked a little burdened, but eager.

64 THE WHITE MOTH

''Why, you see, Hil, it's been that way for quite
a long time. They don't seem to understand up
at the house. But you'll see all right. He does
the buying and selling. I know how to make
knives, but not the rest. You'll see."

With the prelude they entered the oflSce, Hilda
not so confident as she had been that she carried
the hardware business in her pocket. The office
was already full. Along its dingy expanse, heads
were bowed over desks, very much as they had been
at school. The desks were bigger and much more
battered. No one had any books, only papers: in
wire baskets, in manila folders, in piles bitten to-
gether with clips. Those papers looked important
and delightful to Hilda, being tjrpewritten in blurred
purple ink, with wide margins and unmense letter
heads. Girls, little older than she, and young men
whom she called by their first names were treating
these papers like their private property, pushing
them here and there, slamming them into piles,
running with them from one end of the room to
the other.

"We handle the orders here," explained Mr. Near-
ing, "and books and all that. Boyce here, fellows?"

"Right in the office, Mr. Nearing."

"Come along, Hildare."

They traversed the creaking room, Mr. Nearing's
hand rattled open the glass door and drew forward
the suddenly abashed Hilda.

THE WHITE MOTH 65

''IVe brought you a new business woman, Boyce."

Anson Boyce turned round from his desk, a desk
piled quite as high as those outside with brief but
apparently vital documents. He stretched an arm
to bring up a straw bottomed chau*, he smiled, and
Hilda was reduced to wordlessness.

"Glad to see her, Mr. Nearing. Sit down.''

This oflSce was the only part of the Cutlery Works
where Hilda was not at home. This man was the
only one of its employees who was a stranger to her.
She remembered when Anson Boyce had come to
Cato, an effectual young man with quiet brown eyes :
his father had the store at Huston's Comers. Boyce
was not quite so young now and Cato people knew
him little better than when he slipped into place
as one of James Nearing's clerks. But he was man-'
ager and it was understood his word was very near
law at the Works.

"Anson's got a head for putting things shipshape,"
had been James Nearing's report to Hilda. "And
you need that when you're growing."

"Do you like hun?"

''Yes, Hilda. Boyce is a good fellow. If he was
my son I'd be proud of him."

They had to sheer away from that point. It was
the one subject on which Hilda and Guy's father
could not meet. Guy, also, had made up his yoimg
mind, and spoken it, to the effect that the poorest
creature in his world and the most cowardly of

66 THE WHITE MOTH

drudges, was this same Anson Boyce. His position
was, in Guy's eyes, like that of the steward to the
heir apparent. It had been Hilda's lot, in more than
one imreasonable combat, to defend the unknown
young manager. She mentally asked pardon for
this presumption now. Anson Boyce was regardmg
her with an estimating eye.

"We can make room for another stenographer out
here, Mr. Nearing. Would that be what you would
like?"

Mr. Nearing smiled apologetically. Hilda had an
idea that even he was losing conviction in his man-
ager's presence.

"Well, you see, she doesn't want that, Anson."

Mr. Boyce looked distinctly taken back. Obvi-
ously diplomacy was not pleasant to him.

"She might try filing."

Mr. Nearing looked anxiously at Hilda. With
a certain obstruction in her throat, she found her
tongue.

"Does that give you a chance to work up, Mr.
Boyce?"

Mr. Boyce considered a pencil, frowning, and did
not enter into argument. "Why, they're the only
positions we have for women."

"That can't be."

Hilda was quite matter-of-fact, though she did
flush a little when both men looked up, one amused
and the other disturbed*

THE WHITE MOTH 67

"Boys/* said Hilda^ choosing her words, "come
here out of High School. And start at the bottom
somehow. And learn the business. And work up."

"Would you like to be the head of a department,
Miss — "

"Hilda Plaisted, Boyce. And there's no reason
in the world why she shouldn't be!"

Mr. Boyce was obviously faced with the imex-
pected. He seemed, however, to be a person who
dealt with situations thoroughly and his next pro-
ceeding was to look searchingly at Hilda.

"Boys, Miss Plaisted" — he was polite and, to
Hilda's gratitude, quite serious — "take five dollars
a week; handle steel; hear swearing; get dirty.
Willingness to do that is what makes us able to
use them."

Hilda was sorry for her protector at this minute,
Anson had so evidently voiced their common gospel.
And when Mr. Nearing thought his manager was
right, it was not in his creed to ask an exception,
even for his particular favorite. Hilda was serious.

"I don't want to say I could load steel as well as
a boy, Mr. Boyce. But I think the other things
are all right. And it seems to me there ought to
be something where I could have as much chance
as a boy and" — she smiled confidingly at him —

'T)e paid just as little." fr^f?1S?!!!% ^'

"There you are, Anson!" ^^ -r^^

"Stenographers are paid eight, M]||J^i^^^

68 THE WHITE MOTH

"And don't rise beyond fifteen, do they? What
else may I do, Mr. Boyce?"

Anson considered. He took out a pencil and
began making slow checks, one after another in a
neat row. There was graven, on every line of his
lean face, his objection to women protegees of
employers. After a while he said, enlarging the
final check: '^We might make use of you in the stock
room."

Mr. Nearing sighed with relief and then looked
inquiringly at Hilda.

"Jimmy Doane's got the stock room, ain't he,
Anson?"

"He seems to have his hands pretty full. The
foremen haven't been able to get hold of the things
as fast as they wanted, lately. I was going to put
a boy in to help Jimmy at six dollars."

"All right," said Hilda.

Mr. Boyce favored her with another estimating
look.

"Jimmy gets ten," he said. "He's had one year
at High School. He's good at unloading wagons
but I don't find he has much head. See how you
can help him get things in order. Shall I take you
to the stock room?"

"101 do that, Anson, I'll do that!"

Mr. Nearing rose, his pleasure at Hilda's oflBicial
acceptance more beaming than her own. "See you
about that Saxman order later. Will you be
over?"

THE WHITE MOTH 69

Anson said that he would and turned to his pile
of papers with the ingenuous rudeness of a man
who has no time to spare.

"Anson's overworked. And he has got a lot on his
hands. We've been growing faster than anyone
expected.''

"I didn't realize you had practically turned things
over to him."

"Well, I've kept the factory end myself. I want
things to go well, you see. And Anson seems to
manage that part of it better."

She thought that the wistful explanation in Mr.
Nearing's tone was a suggestion of what he would
have liked to say to his wife, to his son, to all Cato,
if they had been patient enough to hear him. But
no one expected explanations from the proprietor
of the Nearing mill, whose function was only to
progress and magnify as the magnate of Cato. So,
Hilda heard with vague sympathy as they walked
in the July sunshine across the yard to the new
corrugated-iron stock room. Her thoughts were
upon it and upon the shirtsleeved figure, ripping
open barrels on its doorstep* But James Nearing,
before they reached it, laid his hand on her arm to
say earnestly: "I needed young blood you see —
now."

It was sad to Mr. Nearing, but not to Hilda.
For what she saw at those words was a dark head
thrust out of a train window, bound for a scene of

70 THE WHITE MOTH

endeavor as wide as the world. The world is bigger
than a hardware factory.

"Is that Jimmy Doane?"

"What the hell, Mr. NearingI Mike Moran says
I ought to have twenty-five gross six-thirty-twos,
and I don't see where they can be anyways. This
am't them?"

Mr. Nearing was instantly on the alert. "What
do you mean, Jimmy? Didn't you count 'em when
they came from the station? Six- thirty- twos cost,
these days."

Jimmy straightened his back, impressed but help-
less. "Lord! How do, Miss Plaisted."

"Shall I look for them?" said Hilda.

Mr. Nearing smiled delightedly. "This is your
new assistant, Jimmy. You needn't make her un-
load wagons, but I guess you can unload some work
on her."

"Her!"

The word might have been a jeer or a helpless
echo. Hilda said meekly: "They're brass screws,
aren't they?"

"Flathead. Machine. Three-quarter inch, num-
ber six, thirty-two threads."

Jimmy evidently thought that he might at least
impress his employer but he seemed without inspira-
tion as to where the screws might be.

"Twenty-five gross would be a big box* You
take the ones in that comer and I'll look under the

THE WHITE MOTH 71

shelves. Have you got different places for different
kinds of things?'^

It was more or less evident that Jimmy had not,
but Hilda did not comment further. She was aware
that her father strongly objected to having it proved
that he had not left his pipe in the place where
he said he had left it. So she gave a smile of farewell
at the departing Mr. Nearing and a smile of com-
radeship to the entering Jimmy.

"Gee, Miss Plaisted, you'll find it dirty here!"

It was dirty. The stock room was one large room,
with a wooden floor and iron walls. A rickety, dust
laden table stood in a comer; the rest of the floor
space was piled with boxes. From shelves along the
wall projected the ungainly shapes of various lumpy
metal things. Already the place was stifling hot:
it reeked with the smell of excelsior and dirty
sacking.

"Mercy!" Hilda was jerking the cover from a
square wooden box she had pulled forward, "We
can keep it clean enough." She was always at her
ease with boys when she had something to do with
her hands. "Are these the ones, Jimmy?"

Jinamy was a little pacified. "Say," he said awk-
wardly, pulling down his sleeves, "I used to see you
with your big brother at school parties, didn't I?"

"Yes. Hilda Plaisted. Will you tell me how all
this works now? I'm going to be as good an assist-
ant as I can."

72 THE WHITE MOTH

When Mr. Nearing stopped by the stock room at
the noon hour, he found already a semblance of order
m the rough little place. The writing table was
pushed forward, its blotter straightened, its papers
sorted in piles; Among a medley of newly arrived
packing cases Jimmy stood, hammer in hand.
Hilda was on the floor with a lapf ul of metal things
which she was bUssfully fingering.

"Brass rivets, three sixty-fourths by three-eighths
of an inch. Is that what the bill calls for, Hilda?"

"Twenty pounds. They've been slow in coming,
haven't they?"

"Well, I guess they're all here. What's next?"

"Next is dinner. Coming with me, Hildare, or
with Jimmy?"

It was the sort of joke people did not make to
Hilda, but Mr. Nearing was exuberant to-day.

"I think I'll bring mine to-morrow and eat it here,
if Jimmy doesn't mind. There's a lot to do. We're
going to begin stock taking pretty soon."

The employer accepted the shop phrase as meat
and drink: he smiled beamingly. Jimmy looked
sheepish at being caught in such meek intimacy with
his new subordinate but Hilda cast him a friendly
smile as she edged out through the packing cases to
join Mr. Nearing.

"Like it, Hildare?"

In James Nearing's tone there was something of
the earnest expectancy of a child who waits for a

THE WHITE MOTH 73

grown-up to share his delight in a Christmas toy.
But he had no disappointment to accept.

"Oh yes, Mr. NearingI What do they use brass
rivets three sixty-fourths by three-eighths of an inch
for?''

■»*

CHAPTER VI

Hil — darling!

This train is awfully long! If you got excited,
you could walk over people's feet, down a green
velvet aisle, most of the way back to Cato. Not
all the way back, darling. If you could, I'd come.

Listen, Hil, you're not to go down to the river
bank. Do you understand? That's our place. If
I thought of you there this summer with Otto Marks
or Joe Byers, I'd die! We're going past lots of
rivers now, every now and then a little green,
slidey one. I pretend that they all belong to us —
that it's a world of rivers and I'm going through it
looking for places where we will come.

Do you love me, Hildare? Gee, I've got to know!

Excuse haste. I forgot to mail this when I got
to New York because there was such a hustle.
Uncle Andrew met me and we stayed here two days.
Oh, Hil, swell! Can't write any more now, we're
going to the theatre to-night and to-morrow we're
going up to Uncle Andrew's place.

Mine HU? Love you.

GUY

74

THE WHITE MOTH 75

The note was inside Hilda's blouse when she
stepped into the stock room on her first full work-
day. Due to its alchemy she approached her su-
perior unembarrassed.

"HeUo, Jimmy."

"HeUo, Hilda."

*Want me to get those things that came last
night?"

"Yeh. WiUyou?"

While she stood on a packing case, bringing a
housewife's order among the shelves, she was aware
of the stock room, but aware of it as the centre of a
world, luminous and immense. New York, Uncle
Andrew's place — unknown! and college, a still
further unknown! One of the first real pains of
love came to Hilda, different from the pain of van-
ished kisses, for that, at seventeen, is half a pleasure :
the world of Guy's thoughts was no longer her
world.

Jimmy, rummagmg among shelves and packing
cases, with a bar of sunlight falling across his
sandy head and lusty bent back, addressed her:
"Would you Ikbel all these kinds of screws separate,
Hilda? We ain't got much of any but the brass
ones.'^

"I'll make the labels, Jimmy, shall I?" answered
Hilda, and meantime her ranging thoughts were
wondering: "Perhaps Guy will be a lawyer. But
then he wouldn^t live in Cato."

76 THE WHITE MOTH

"I never did like this writin' and countin' busi-
ness much." Jimmy pushed a pile of papers toward
her with relief.

"I think I can help with that."

She pulled a chair to the desk and took up the
rusty pen. As she scratched along she thought:
"Everylx)dy in Cato knows as much about New
York as I do. But I can read. Suppose Guy
should find some new career that I never heard of!"

And that in the end was what happened.

The next morning, at half past eight, Hilda hung
her hat behind a shelf in the stock room as if she
had been doing it all her life.

So, from one day to the next, her world shifted
from the white-plastered schoolroom and the vine-
covered porches and the maple-shaded streets of
Cato and became a stretch of sunbaked yard where
the flies buzzed in the June sunlight and the sound
of machines burdened the air. She thought about
tenpenny nails and it was morning, and she thought
about cleaned bone for knife handles and it was
night. And in all the little intervals she thought
about Guy. It seemed to Hilda that she and he
had started on two parallel roads that ran far apart,
just within hailing distance. She had no time to
look ahead on her road, or behind, only when she
stopped, just for a minute, tingling and satisfied, it
was nice to wave her hand to the boy over on the
other road, still within sight

THE WHITE MOTH 77

There was a rapid pulsation about all his letters.
He was like an engine running at fuU speed.

Hovfd you like me to he in the diplomatic serv-
ice? There's a peach of a fellow here that is. It's
a slick job and all you have to do is be nice to people.

What about organization? There's a bird here not
much older than me that got up a whole company.

Hilda was awed. To her there were no careers
but doctor, lawyer, minister and the Cutlery Works.
She was not sure that being nice to people or getting
up things, admittedly accomplishments of Guy's,
ought to be considered as money-making assets.
In Cato they were allowed to be pleasant accessories,
but too much of them was not normal. The main
thing was the day's work.

But she expressed no doubts to Guy, only humil-
ity. Her letters were long, because Guy had asked
that they be, and correct and involved because they
were so shy. Guy laughed about them.

Honey! Aren't you pernickety, talking about
my chances for fuller development and all that! I
just organized the High School class for fun, if you
call that getting ready for a great future.

And by the next mail:

Hil'darling, Hil-dear, Hil-sweet, I canH stay away
from you. I thought about it all last night.
What's the use of being so young, Hilf I'd like to

78 THE WHITE MOTH

have you now — in a car, like the people have here,
and one of those houses with big white verandas
behind box hedges where you run into the city for
the theatre. Then you'd be mine and Vd wait on
you all the time. Sweetheart!,

None of the people who watched Hilda walk to
work the next morning, in a dark blue dimity made
at home and rather too full at the back, with the
"V" of the neck cut just too high, realized what an
immortally wise person they saw. For Hilda, as
for all women who come into their heritage, streets
and cities and people had disappeared like midges
from a burning planet. She was gasping, like a
person drowning under deep water, and awed like
one waking in a world-wide desert, lit by stars.
Guy had spoken of living in the same house with her
all their lives, and the words were before her on
paper.

A sacred silence descended on them after that.
Guy did not write and Hilda, with her blouse creased
by the heat, her hair in dusty wisps, climbed about
the stock room.

"Fifty pieces of flats, three fourths by one eighth,
fifteen feet long. Got that, Hil?"

"Yes. What is a flat, Jimmy?"

"Piece of steel. Twenty gross inch-and-a-quarter
number six round-headed blued-wood screws. Let's
see — we had that — "

THE WHITE MOTH 79

"Does all this go down on separate pieces of paper,
Jimmy?'^

"Yeh. Then we copy it in a book. I know I
had them screws before/^

"How often do we do this?"

"Twice a year. Gee, them screws — "

"But you must lose track of a lot in between
limes."

"Awi— !" Such exclamations went without
comment by this time. "How can you keep track of
such a lot of stuff I I got it in my head all right."

Hilda wrote silently. "Would you mind if I tried
jto fix up a system, Jimmy? When there is time?"

*Tfou know the names of all this junk, do you?"

"Well, I guess I'm learning."

"Oh, go to it."

Hilda went to it, having decided some time ago
that the matter was very like housekeeping.
Housekeeping is simple if you have a place for all
your utensils and put them back there when you
have used them. It may seem difficult, at first, to
keep track of several hundredweight of steel instead
of a dozen teaspoons, but that is when you are old
and find changing worlds an effort. Hilda came
back from the main office with several gross of filing
cards and explained her idea to Jimmy.

"A card for each article. Mark the amounts
every day as things come in and out. Then we'll
always know exactly how much we Viav^r

80 THE WHITE MOTH

"AU right if you'U do it, ffil. I'U keep to the
man's work — shag the iron and jaw the freight
agent. You do the writin' and figurin\ All right?"

"Of course it's all right, Jimmy. I don't believe
there's anybody in the place that can manage a
freight agent better than you can."

That was how Hilda began to learn the inmost
nature of steel and iron and bone. While she kept
her mind serenely to it, the summer rolled to its
zenith. On the Saturday afternoons, which she
spent alone in the stock room, making acquaintance
in proprietary solitude with bars of steel and bags
of bones, the boys and girls went laughing to the
river and Hilda did not know it. And in the eve-
nings when she walked home late from the Works,
thinking, with real excitement, of a new way to
simplify her records, she saw a veranda crowded with
dark forms, heard the notes of a mandolin or a pho-
nograph and was not stirred. She did not even feel
lonely. She had time only for her own work — and
for the other more glorious rimner on the distant
road.

The blazing August days shortened and clouded;
the very first maples on Nearing Street showed
golden leaves. One day her mother spoke of get-
ting the children's dresses ready for school.

"Is it September?"

"Gee, you keep your eyes open down to the fac-
tory I"

THE WHITE MOTH 81

"Guy will be starting for college."

Any family eruption could be awed into silence
by the mention of Guy. His trailing clouds of glory
still shimmered in the sight of Cato. The sleeping
ambitions, the wistful desires, of every boy in the
town were embodied in the lot of Guy Nearing.

''Has he written lately, Hil?"

"Not very lately."

She had made ready for this, but it was hard to
bear, the barren lapse when Guy was busy and
could not put his mind on writing. There was just
one dazzling surprise in the midst of it, a post card
of an old gray dormitory against green grass. With
the sign they used for kisses. That was the last
message from the Guy who belonged entirely to
ffilda.

Vm in Larrabee Hall, Hil. The next letter,
when it came, was circumstantial. It assumed an
immense knowledge on Hilda's part. It gave the
names of subjects, books, professors (hereinafter
to be called "profs" without warning to Hilda),
classmates, buildings, the streets of the town. Hilda
skimmed the letter for endearing words : Guy had
had no room for them among the information.
Then she put it away among the most treasured
of all, whose terms were to be learned by heart.
Now Guy had begun.

She felt a little breathless after that', with the
impact of the letters. They came like blows, each

82 THE WHITE MOTH

with so much information to accept. Guy vibrated
with the activity of the new life, and Hilda's smile
as she read the letters, too intent for lovemaking,
was almost maternal. It was so right for Guy to
have a chance like this: a start cut off from old
things. She no longer dared picture the final goal,
and struggled merely to keep him in sight.

Do you know, Hil — This was one of the most
cherished letters, cherished because it spoke, not of
love, nor of Hilda, but of Guy in one of those un-
guarded, boyishly confiding moments, which are
a woman's dearest proof of affection. Do you know,
Hil, I believe Dad's got the idea of work all wrong.
He doesn't think people ought to be happy when
they work — just to get something done. I honestly
don't see what difference it makes how many knives
there are in the world. But think of eight hours a
day, m^aybe ten, in that dump of a place! It is a
dump, you know, dirty rooms, smutty windows,
people that can't talk about anything interesting.
And there's Europe and all waiting to be seen —

Hilda's heart contracted at that mention of Eu-
rope. The word had not occurred in Guy's letters
before, but she knew, as well as she would have
known had she seen him with another girl on the
street, that it meant something fatal for her. She
resigned herself at that moment, though it was
months before the word recurred. And in some
flash of understanding, almost a miracle, so foreign

THE WHITE MOTH 83

was it to her own nature, she tried to see why Guy
found eight hours a day at the Cutlery Works ugly.

"Mrs. Nearing, have you ever thought of Gujr's
being an artist?" She tried to propose the sub-
versive thought gently to Guy's mother, but Mrs.
Nearing took her hand, eyes shining.

"Oh, yes, Hilda, I have thought."

"He — he never painted, or anything."

"It's the temperament." Mrs. Nearing, breath-
less as a girl at some wUd, forbidden extravagance,
ventured : "My people, the Van Wycks, were always
like that. And Guy has the long hands."

"Fm sure," admitted the puzzled Hilda, "I don't
know who there is but artists who work for fun."

"Oh, Hilda, that confining work at the Cutlery
would never do for Guy. I've always known it.
Though with his organizing ability and pop-
ularity — I I don't know, I'm sure."

Neither did Hilda know. She felt that the hori-
zons of her ordinary world had cracked open:
in the new, dazzling vistas, she could hardly
see clearly. But, watching Guy's mother's wrapt
look, a look of childlike longing as well as protection,
Hilda, without Mrs. Nearing's wings of fantasy and
with all the knowledge of sober facts which the older
woman did not have, Hilda followed her every step
of the way.

"If he wants to be an artist, Mrs. Nearing, of
course he must."

84 THE WHITE MOTH

"I knew you'd agree with me, my dear."

The thought of added vistas, which meant added
patience for her, kept Hilda steady through the un-
even flow of Guy's letters, which sometimes flooded
upon her three times a week and sometimes sub-
sided to a line or two, casual and dear in their
perfect reliance on her interest.

Working like time, Hil. Love.

Oot the grippe. Wish you were here.

And then an astounding array of exploits in which
Guy had been elected president of this or that
paysterious body, Guy had organized a club, Guy
had got into a desirable "set" — not bunch. Hilda
was awed by the news and Mrs. Nearing ecstatic.

"You don't say Guy isn't showing ability," she

challenged her husband once when Hilda sat at their

»

feet on the porch steps.

A queer expression passed across Mr. Nearing's
face, hastily restrained. Whether it was pride, envy,
or displeasure, Hilda was not sure.

"If that^s what you call ability!" said Guy's
father.

Hilda did not take her letters to the Works. She
knew ^ow that they would be her most secret
treasure for years, and they might get crumpled.
They were in her top bureau drawer, in the white
satin glove box painted with pansies, which had
marked the maturity of her fifteenth birthday.
Beside them lay the little turquoise ring that came

THE WHITE MOTH 85

at Christinas time before Guy acquired some ob-
scure scorn of turquoise rings, and the odd pearl
pendant that came later. They were riches enough
for Hilda. They sufficed to make loneliness impos-
sible in the winter evenings when the family were
in bed or at prayer meeting and EQlda, after a
warmed-up supper, sat alone beside her oak bureau
with the scarf embroidered with pansies and the
photographs of Guy.

She lost the thread of his new vision of beauty,
there were so many other beauties. Guy, in com-
parison with her, seemed very young. The world
seemed to have stopped for him, to taste and enjoy.
Tears, almost maternal, came to Hilda's eyes. His
enthusiasm was so heartwhole, his absorption so
complete. Meantime, her new system in the stock
room was fairly well installed.

It took the Works a little time to get used to
Hilda. It was many a day before the fact that the
neat blue serge below her waist was in the form of
a skirt rather than trousers and that the crinkly
brown hair at the back of her neck was knotted
rather than short cropped had ceased to appall and
irritate her fellow workers. But people can become
used to an extraordinary number of things. The
time arrived, even as it would have arrived, had
Hilda been a hump-backed witch or a diamond-
crowned princess, when Stenslund put his head in
at the door to ask for bone and Vi^A BAXi^xi!a<^TL \.^^

86 THE WHITE MOTH

nothing in the world but bone. EQlda supplied it.
She was a perfectly working part of the machine.

"What do you think you're doin', Hilder, playin'
doll's house with them screws?" Mike Moran, in
his shirtsleeves, stood puffing in the doorway.

"Of course I'm keeping house, Mike. What'll you
have?"

The foreman of the forge shop grinned tolerantly.
Then he reverted to business and addressed himself
to Hilda's superior.

"Say, you young son of a blankety blank blank,
Where's them steel flats that was ordered three weeks
ago? Can I make knives out of old pins, or pfwhat
is it?"

"I gave you the steel."

"Aw, h 1 do you call that steel! Say, excuse

me. Miss Plaisted."

"All right, Mike. What was the matter with the
steel?"

"Matter! Holy—! Oh, all right then, I can't
be thinking about them things when I'm talking
business. Why, that wasn't no steel. Miss Plaisted.
Bum my hide if it wouldn't split in your hand like
celery! What this mutt is thinkin' of not to look
at what they put over on him when it hits the
stock room — !'*

"We ought to write to the shipper and say it's
bad then, oughtn't we?"

"And who's to do it! There ain't no organnyza-

THE WHITE MOTH 87

tion here. If this poor sunp was to look at steel he
wouldn't see much more than the puddin' his head
is made of.''

"Say, Mike, any time you want your features
altered—"

'Will you show me what's the matter, Mike? I've
seen a lot of steel. Then I can report it better to
the purchasing agent."

Mike, brought up short, favored Hilda with a sour
glare. Then : 'Well, I s'pose you do know the look
of it, playin' around here so many years. Come
on, Hilder."

There followed Hilda's faded blue dimity back,
an envious and respectful look on the part of Jimmy
Doane. But it soon melted from that good natured
face and Jimmy went on with the tune he was
whistling. It was the beginning of the process by
which, in course of time, Hilda discharged her boss.

"Say, Hil, is ten dollars a week awful little for
a feller my age?"

"Why, Jimmy! I don't know."

"You go ahead darn slow here.*'

"Mr. Nearing's conservative."

" 'T this rate I won't be boss of the Works very
soon."

An astoimding thought as to Jimmy's intentions
flashed through Hilda's mind, but she labelled in
silence. From the door Mike Moran cast her the
smile of a genial and humorous patron B;dkiX>«

88 THE WHITE MOTH

"That Guy Nearing, now!'' burst out Jimmy.
"Gee! I'd like to be in his shoes! Don't have to
work a stroke and he'll be boss of the whole joint
as soon as he comes home."

"If that young blatherskite was to do a stroke of
work once in his life it wouldn't hurt him." Mike^
in privileged character of James Nearing's pioneer
foreman, contributed to the conversation. "That
ain't the way his pa got to be boss."

"Guy Nearing was the brightest boy in school."

"Sin^, Hilda. But work's gotta be learned."
Mike, who had provided both Guy and Hilda with
steel shavings for playthings once upon a time, re-
tained his stand. "Well, Jimmy, all I can tell you
is you'll work a long time in a stock room before
ye'll be earning the money to talk up to Mr. Guy
Nearing."

"Oh, sure," said Jimmy gruffly, "I'm settled any-
way. Hil, I'm going. I'm no great shucks at this
business without the writing. Mike's going to take
me on."

"Oh, Jimmy, I'm glad. But—"

Mike grinned. "Siu^ ye can do it. Any kid of
fifteen can roll the boxes for ye. Don't let 'em
put it over on ye, Hilder*"

So Hilda, with her retiring superior's blessing,
went to Anson Boyce.

'Tfou say you've been doing all the clerical work
and keeping the inventory?"

THE WHITE MOTH 89

"IVe started a card system, Mr. Boyce, It really
goes very easily."

"Card system. Hm." Boyce stared at the cracked
and peeling edge of his desk. "Your idea?"

"Since the stock taking. We know now just what
material there is on any given day."

"Hm. I intend to give you a fair deal, Miss
Plaisted." (Poor Boyce! No condenmed man in-
viting the rack coidd have looked more grim.)
Hilda had an absurd desire to assure him tearfully :

"It isn't important, really. It doesn't take any
brains. Don't be alarmed."

"This is your idea. You may go ahead with it.
We needed something of the sort. You will be
listed as temporary stock clerk. Nine dollars."

There is something about coming out of the boss's
office after a successful interview like emerging on
the world after rebirth. Everything looks fresh,
diflferent, one has leisure to absorb it in a new lease
of life. Hilda, beaming her happiness on the grimy
hall, bumped full into Mr. Nearing.

"How's the stock room, Hildare?"

"Oh, Mr. Nearing, shall I teU you?"

They stopped by the window, open on the muddy
yard where the sparrows hopped. Mr. Nearing, his
hair rumpled, a streak of grime across his collar,
heard her exultant.

"The boss of the stopk room and a boy to order
aroimdt Put it right up to old Anson and didn't

90 THE WHITE MOTH

need me at all! That's the ticket, Hil, I'm proud
of you."

He was proud. The hand that grasped her sleeve
was shakmg. Hilda was embarrassed for a moment,
suddenly moved. "It's — nothing."

"It's fine. I'm glad to see you getting along like
this. Work does it, Hil. It's what I always
hoped — "

Suddenly the proprietor of the Works said no
more. They turned toward the door in silence.

"Mrs. Nearing says — Guy won't be coming home
right after commencement. He has an invitation
somewhere."

"Seems like it, Hil."

"I'm glad — "

Mr. Nearing scratched his head resignedly. "Yes.
It's all right. Guy's crazy to travel. Like his
mother says, there ain't no reason why not — "

Hilda's heart sank — sank to where she could not
remember that she had ever been to the boss's office
or come forth again on a new world.

"Travel ! Mr. Nearing — do you mean Europe?"

"Why — it seems these college boys do that sort
of thing. His mother's fixing it."

It was May and the dandelions grew in Cato yards.
Hilda, walking home and drinking in unconsciously
the sweetness of the air and the quiet of the maple-
shaded streets, realized that the sky was very blue
above the tree-tops and the shingled houses, and

THE WHITE MOTH 91

that violets showed purple about the big elm tree
at the comer of Nearing Street. She realized it be-
cause they had grown there last year when she and
Guy were planning for the High School dance.

On the Plaist^d porch, the whole family sat rock-
ing in the late simshine. Jim, swinging his legs
from the railing, was announcing: "I'm going to take
Jessie Bownes.''

"To what, Jimmy?'*

"My land, HU, but you're a live one! Maybe
they don't know down at the shop that next month's
the High School dance."

The High School dance! She paused, outlined
against the pale sunset of the May afternoon, Hilda,
in her dark dress and sailor hat, her eyes sober with
the memory of shelves and figures. "Oh," said
Hilda.

"You're going to cut it, I suppose, Hildare? I
haven't heard you say anything about it."

"Why — yes. I don't know many people now. I
expect I shouldn't have much fun."

No one urged Hilda. Going to a dance without a
partner was too well known a form of torture. She
herself forgot the dance. Even on that last June
night she had forgotten it — the night when Near-
ing Street was full of gentle murmurs and hurrying
footsteps, when Jim went slamming through the
house at half -past seven to hearten himself by a
moment or two with the fellows, before he called

92 THE WHITE MOTH

for Jessie, when Gertie Fowler passed laughing under
her tan cloak, with a white bow on her hair, when
Gertie's mother called from the front porch with
proud expectancy: "Have a good time, dear!"

Hilda, serenely putting away the silver while her
mother washed out the dishcloth, turned to look
after Gertie. A new moon stood over the end of
Nearing Street. And June was the syringas' blos-
soming time.

"I sort of wish you were going to the dance,
ffilda.''

"I don't believe I do. Mother. I have enough to
keep me happy.''

Mr. Plaisted was at the store that night and Mrs.
Plaisted chose to sit upstairs with Dorrie who had
a cold. Hilda, her skirt binding sewed up and the
hook she had lost that day replaced, stood at the
door and breathed the syringas. It was not of the
dance she was thinking: to her sweet reasonableness
those things were all as they must be. It was right
that her road was a long and humble one and that
Guy in his distant triiunph had become almost
invisible. But as she stood at the door, in the light
only of the street lamp and the new moon, her eyes
took on that blue depth that made her look as
though another soul beside her own had entered
into her, filling her body with invincible power.

Quite still she stood there, her hands at her sides
and her eyes quiet. But when she moved, it was

THE WHITE MOTH 93

not to take a wild, secret flight to the riverbank.
EQlda went into the house again, closed the front
door and went upstairs. Hilda was not a person
who prayed. For her, daily life seemed to take the
place of that. But she stood at her window with
her mouth soft and her hands earnestly clasped. It
was the window that looked toward the square,
chocolate-colored mansion.

i

CHAPTER yil

"Miss Plaisted!"

Smythe^ the office manager of the purchasing de-
partment^ came fluttering out through the glass door
that led to the inner office, whither he motioned
Hilda. Hilda, at the third of the double row of
desks down the room, looked up.

"The boss is with him. You know?"

*Tes, Mr. Smythe.'^

The occupants of all the other desks looked up
as Hilda rose. She was surprisingly little different
from the Hilda who had entered the stock room
six years ago: a little taller, a little more con-
fident, a little soberer all together. Her crinkly
hair still swept to the back of her head ir» the golden
brown knot which caught the aftemoor >eun. Her
blue serge dress was a little more careful and ex-
pensive, but her blue eyes had the old ^ook, serene
and single hearted, though their shadow*^ had grown
imduly wise.

"I bet BoyceTl give it to her."

"It's her turn for a call down."

'Witmer's been listening to her entirf4y too much
lately."

94

THE WHITE MOTH 95

The whispers followed Hilda's vigorous young back
as she set a weight on the orderly pile of letters
on her desk and went toward the purchasing agent's
office.

"Oh. Hm. Here you are."

Witmer, the purchasing agent, an importation to
the Works only a few years ago, was leaning back
at the roll top desk, dangling a foot and twisting
his lips with their little, rope-colored mustache. By
the side of the desk, dark, calm and motionless, sat
Anson Boyce. Hilda pulled up a chair.

**You Ve beeA in this department how many years,
Miss Plaisted?"

"Four, Mr. Boyce. Since I left the stock room."

"Ever since I came, in fact. Miss Plaisted and
I have more or less built up this department to-
gether, eh?"

"I've always had charge of the follow-up letters.
And then of the files."

"I remember. You had to have some one to
dictate to because you — er — woiddn't learn the
tjrpewriter. Have you got your new tabulating sys-
tem installed here pretty well?"

"I think so. We've had it a year."

Witmer nodded, Boyce made checks. Hilda,
glancing at some of the figures before the two men,
perceived that they had been in conference about
something more immediate than the tabulating
system of the purchasing department. She glanced

96 THE WHITE MOTH

>

quietly at the paper under Witmer's nervous hand
and sat still.

"We're loaded up on steel/' said Boyce.

"I did it/'

Witmer, Hilda's chief, shifted imeasily, Boyce
moved round to look at her. There had never been
any special kindliness in the brief looks cast by
Anson Boyce on EQlda Plaisted. She knew quite
well that the manager felt no liking for the girl who
had forced herself into his stock room and later, by
somewhat the same process, into his purchasing de-
partment. But whenever she had done well, he had
said so and through these years of association, inti-
mate though impersonal, she had come to have an
unexpressed liking for the silent, wooden-faced man,
about whom the hands all agreed: 'Well, Boyce is
fair, anyhow."

"You did? Will you teU us why. Miss Plaisted?"

Witmer, her explosive young chief, to whose ambi-
tions, whose problems and whose babies Hilda had
been a sympathetic listener, tried to divert this cate-
chism.

"Well, naturally, I made the final purchase,
Boyce."

"On Miss Plaisted's suggestion?"

"Certamly," said Hflda.

Boyce again cast her an estimating look from
his brown eyes. "Would you mind telling us on
just what evidence you advised it, Miss Plaisted?"

THE WHITE MOTH 97

Hilda's serene blue eyes did not waver. She
looked very young between the two worried men.
Somehow, in spite of the trimness of her appearance,
any room in which Hilda sat came to have a home-
like tranquillity.

"An intuition, Mr. Boyce."

"A what!''

"I judged by the look of the travelling man.''

"She knows 'em all," put in Witmer. "None of
'em will miss passing the time of day if they find
a lady in the office."

"And he looked — how, may I ask?" It was hard
to tell whether Boyce was angry or not. His lips
were pursed as he waited for her answer.

"He looked as usual. It was simply that he had
always been anxious to sell, and one day, he was
not. So, I drew conclusions."

"And told Witmer that because a drummer had
seemed a little offish to a lady clerk, he had better
spend several thousand doUars on steel?"

Boyce was within his rights and Hilda had no
license to get angry, but she spoke crisply. "I em-
ployed a little brains beside, Mr. Boyce. I checked
up my suspicions by the trade journals."

'Tou read them?"

"Certainly. I found there were new railroad
projects and increased automobile production.
That's plain enough."

"Basing price of steel?"

98 THE WHITE MOTH

"Naturally.'' Hilda smiled at the manager with
the confidence of one expert toward another. "Be-
sides, I knew my man."

"I see. The place of feminine intuition in busi-
ness. I had," admitted Boyce, ^noticed the railroad
and automobile symptoms myself. But," he checked
her brusquely, "we have heard nothing all winter
of rising steel prices."

"Suppose you call up Milwaukee, Mr. Boyce, and
find out. I will abide by the result."

A certain crisp, instantaneous smile passed over
Boyce's face. "It is not necessary. Miss Plaisted.
I have a letter here from the Brownson Company,
our largest shippers. They offer steel at four and
a half cents higher than we've been paying. And
they warn us to stock up now, because it is
going up."

A girlish relief passed over Hilda's face. She
smiled, Witmer smiled, even Boyce emitted a quick
kindly glance.

"I just wanted to know what your art of prophecy
was. Miss Plaisted. Witmer admitted to being at
a loss.

"You'll get that thirty-five a week now. Miss
Plaisted. Would have before, if you'd been a man.
You've earned it."

Boyce regarded her speculatively and Hilda was
caught by the keen intentness of the mimager's face
when he was refially at ease. "A woman assistant

f

THE WHITE MOTH 99

to the purchasing agent is a novelty, but I do not
see that, if a woman has what we want, she should
be debarred.'*

Vibrating with the exhilaration of her first real
step into success, Hilda went out through the glass
door.

They were already putting on their hats in the
outer office. The whir of the machines had ceased,
out in the yard the stream of bobbing heads poured,
eager, toward the gate.

"It was all right, wasn't it, Hilda?" Smythe, the
Sunday School superintendent, an office boy at the
Works the year he finished school, smiled up at the
girl without envy. "I knew Anson couldn't have
much against you. He's fair, Anson is."

Hilda had at last the sanction of the chief of

*

the Works. She did not know how early in her
career her ambition had switched from satisfying
James Nearing to satisfying Anson Boyce. Perhaps
it came about when she realized that Mr. Nearing
himself watched for the approval of his manager.
They had many talks during the walks home in
the evenings when Hilda was no longer an employee
but a neighbor. She was experienced enough now
to understand the business story that Mr. Nearing
poured out insatiably, evening by evening, of the
growth of the Works from a tiny business without
books, without system, carried about quite literally,
in the proprietor's pocket, to the modem thriving

100 THE WHITE MOTH

concern that furnished emplojrment to all the coun-
trjrside around Cato.

She understood that this expansion had been
supervised by Anson Boyce.

"I understand how to make knives, Hil. And
good ones. But there's more to it. Buying and
selling. Budgets. Costs department. It's too big
for one man."

"That was where you needed — some one
younger?"

Mr. Nearingy after this question of Hilda's, had
been silent for several moments and then remarked :
"Guy wa'n't old enough when I first took Anson on.
And, like he says, it wa'n't interesting work. Not
for a young boy. And like his mother says, I had
money enough to give him something else."

It was said with unembittered humility. Hear-
ing it, Hilda realized that perhaps the proprietor of
the Works knew what was murmured about him here
and there; that perhaps Mrs. Nearing, with her
attitude of royal patience, perhaps Guy, with his
careless patronage, were within their rights toward
the head of the family. Perhaps Anson Boyce was
right in assuming the chief responsibility at the
Works. The dwindling of Mr. Nearing's titanic
figure marked the real end of her childhood. So she
was able to advise him sanely when, several years
ago, he had broached the fact : "They say maybe it's
A^ood thing to incorporate, Hil. Get a lot of people

THE WHITE MOTH 101

together so I wouldn't be the sole owner. We could
get money easier that way and" — helplessly —
"we're growing."

"And the state's growing. It's your great chance."

"Yes. I suppose so. It would be called the Cato
Cutlery Works. Goes nice, doesn't it?"

"Not Nearing's any more?"

"It doesn't — really matter, Hil."

So the Cato Cutlery Works had been incorporated,
Anson Boyce was made clerk and Hilda was given a
share of stock. And now, as she put on her sailor
hat to go home, she saw in the flyspecked mirror
behind the door the face of the new assistant to
the purchasing agent.

'Tes," she told Smythe, "it was all right."

She followed the others down the creaking stairs,
and out into the yard with its mud and its few
dandelions in the grass behind the gate. Every one
was out on the streets of Cato to-night. From
Bartlett's drug store the school girls poured out, late
for supper and laughing in tremulous bursts. Along
Maple Street and Hawthorne Street, the front doors
stood open, sometimes children played on the steps,
or a girl stood, busy with the trellis and the budding
vines, to glance up vividly at a group of boys who
passed and dared a shy greeting.

Every night, for six springs, Hilda had seien
these things, as she passed on her own homeward
yray^ with dusty hair and creased ^kkt ^sA ^XS^^n^s^

102 THE WHITE MOTH

drooping under the hard wear of the office. The
pang that she felt had always been a very faint
and concealed one. She did not want, in her pre-
occupied and office-worn state, to face the groups of
boys and stand on her merits. And she knew well
that if she was absent from these porch and pave-
ment gatherings that she would not be remembered
when the couples were made up for the Saturday
picnic on the river, and when the boys waited at
the door to intercept the girl with whom they had
arranged to walk home from prayer meeting.

She was well content. There had been one sacred
year, long ago, when she passed the boys, wrapt and
unseeing, because they were not like Guy. And
after that, when, so gently and so inevitably that
the pain was never sharp, Guy receded from her
horizon, she had still not cared for the boys who
were his inferiors. Hilda guessed, dimly, now that
gray time was past, how Jane and Elsie and the boys
of her set had looked after her with puzzled regret.
"Hil Plaisted's getting to be a stick. Never jolly
and always thinking about the Works."

Thanks to the Works, that abysmal time had
passed. Hilda did not know how fortunate she was
to have her first hard blow when she was young
enough to have vigor left for work and curiosity
to keep her still alive. It was when she knew that
Guy would always find some new interest to keep
him from Cato, that the new purchasing department

THE WHITE MOTH 103

was instituted and Hilda made herself a place in it.
That year, when she was twenty, was the year
which had seemed to Hilda to carry her into the
heart of knowledge far beyond any mother in Cato.
For, that year, she took the satin box of letters out
of her bureau drawer and put it away. That year
the shadows of yearning and loneliness left her eyes
and serenity came back. She even smelled the
syringa hedge without any change of expression
other than a far away gentleness.

"I still love him," said Hilda. "It is not his fault."
Nor was it Hilda's fault if, even yet, the immense
tenderness in her heart would open to no one but
Guy, if the suffering and need of any one else would
have seemed merely one of life's incidents, but
suffering on the part of Guy something to shake the
world. She hardly knew this herself, because Guy
did not suffer and no one spoke to her of him. It
was not her fault, nor even with her knowledge, that
the single voice of her being still willed, unques-
tioned: "I wait."

Hilda had a standing of her own now. She was
no longer "the little Plaisted girl who does something
at the Works." She was Miss Plaisted of the Pur-
chasing department, who had a new hat every season
and made more than a stenographer and as much
as a school teacher. If you made as much as that
in Cato, you were not called on to marry. So Hilda
was respected. But it was with a little pang, in

104 THE WHITE MOTH

the moment of her triumph, that she answered
Janey Marks' hail to-night on the comer of Near-
ing Street.

"My dear, I'm so late for getting supper! But I
couldn't get downtown before. Baby's been a little
fiend. Teething, you know. Look at Aunt Hilda,
Otto baby."

*'He's really sweet, Janey."

"Honestly, isn't he, Hil. And I don't mind having
the oldest a girl: she'll be so useful taking care of
him."

*Tou'll let me take them some Saturday?"

"Angel girl! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.
They say Guy Nearing's coming back."

With her last year's spring coat streaming behind
her, Janey was oflf up the street, toward the double
house where she and Otto lived. Hilda, her face
showing white in the twilight, walked on. She
nearly ran into a group of girls who rushed down
the steps of one of the houses.

"Good-bye then, meany. I know why you have
to race home and dress for to-night!"

"Aren't you smart! When someone's been pay-
ing exactly as much attention to you!"

"Oh wait, girls, what about Saturday? Is every-
body having a new dress? I'm not, I warn you.
Oh, hello, Hilda."

Hilda did not know why, after the years of serene
aloofness, she felt abashed by the girls' chatter of

THE WHITE MOTH 105

things in which she had no part. With a little smile
from eyes which looked unusually dark, she was
passing on. But Elsie Rice, now Elsie Bauerman,
detached herself, a brilliant foreign visitor from the
group of younger gh-ls who hung admiringly about
her.

"I suppose you're interested in all this prepara*
tion, Hil. Have you heard Guy Nearing's to be
in town?"

"Is he?"

''Mr. Bauerman met him on the Mauretama.
They landed last week."

As Hilda turned away from the group there was,
perhaps due to the influence of Elsie Bauerman, a
renewed criticism in their eyes. "She is sort of a
stick."

The Plaisteds finished supper early. They were
a small family now, for Bob was married and Jim
was away at college. Mr. Plaisted pushed back his
chair at seven and went down to the store which
always kept open on Wednesday nights. Mrs.
Plaisted went upstairs to finish Dorrie's first party
dress. Hilda, according to a habit that had become
safe through years of commonplace use, drifted to
the Nearings' porch.

"Is that you, Hilda? IVe been so anxious for
you." Mrs. Nearing was alone in the rocker at the
top of the steps, wrapped in her white shawl with
the lavender border. "My dear, he's coming."

106 THE WHITE MOTH

"I heard."

They sat in silence in the deepening spring twi-
light^ Mrs. Nearing ghostlike in her rocker and
Hilda wami; solid and unnaturally stilly on the steps
at her feet.

"I don't suppose it will be for good; though — his
father wants it."

"Will he/' Hilda's voice was like that of a school
girl, "will he give up painting, Mrs. Nearing?"

'Well, I think — as a profession." Mrs. Nearing,
in speaking about these things strange to Cato, had
a remote, mysterious tone. But in the dark, along
with the creak of her rocker, Hilda heard a certain
wistfulness in her voice. "Of course he only took it
up as a means of general culture, during this year
or two since college. I was never sure myself it
would prove his real life work."

"Two years is — not much."

"Oh, no, Hilda. That's what I tell Mr. Nearing.
Give the boy a chance. Guy is so brilliant, Hilda,
in such an unusual, all-round way. It's no wonder
it's hard for him to settle immediately on the thing
he can do best."

Hilda nodded. There was no shyness about her
approach to this subject, the single subject of every
evening on the Nearings' porch. Too often the
two women had sat here together, Mrs. Nearing in
her rocker, Hilda at her feet, to discuss every letter,
every word of Guy's. There was no difference in

THE WHITE MOTH 107

their eagerness, none in their whole-hearted happi-
ness when Guy was happy. They had only one
letter between them and it was addressed to Mrs.
Nearing, but they devoured it like two mothers.

"Does he say what he thinks of next?''

"He talks of various plans. A ranch with some
friends. But I want him to come home and rest."

"I think he must miss you, Mrs. Nearing."

The older woman's eyes shone secretly in the
dark. "I think he does, Hilda. Guy and I have
always been very close."

There was a childlike exultation in her tone.
This thing was unacknowledged between the two,
yet they allowed for it. They allowed for the fact
that, as Hilda advanced in the business world, leav-
ing Guy's mother still seated on the porch where
she had sat when she first came as a bride to Cato,
as Hilda's little triumphs succeeded one another,
there came to Mrs. Nearing other triumphs : the let-
ters with "Yours lovingly" scrawled across the bot-
tom, the photographs inscribed "To my dearest,
Guy." Fortified by these things, Mrs. Nearing
watched her own gray hairs thicken; she watched
the girl she had seen bom become a personage
in Cato.

"I have begged him to come home to see me."

There was a long pause.

"Guy doesn't like Cato."

"I have never thought," said Mrs. Nearing, "that

108 THE WHITE MOTH

I must teach him to like it. For me, it was different.
My place was with my husband — "

It was strange how little it had entered even
Hilda^s head that Mrs. Nearing felt herself to be
enduring exile. But she paused wistfully after these
words and Hilda felt in her attitude some childlike
longing to confide. She seemed to have forgotten,
to-night^ that it was only on one subject she and
Hilda had been intimate, and lapsed into confession
toward the woman who had so imperceptibly grown
to be her equal.

'TTou know, Hilda, I always supposed when we
came here that it wouldn't be long. My people,
I know, expected it. Mr. Nearing wanted to start
in a new coimtry. I understood, of course; but
starting a factory — ; ** she waved her hand vaguely,
"of course it must be small at first, but after a while
a man gets into the rush of things. Big invest-
ments, new branches — Mr. Nearing doesn't seem
so interested in that side of things, Hilda."

"Mr. Nearing is a real craftsman. He likes mak-
ing good knives."

"Oh, yes, yes; but I hope all that is going to
be changed. Money making takes a little daring.
With this new plan — "

"New plan." Hilda sat up suddenly as though
some child of her own had been meddled with by
untutored fingers. "What plan? A change at the
factory?"

THE WHITE MOTH 109

'Well, a little change. But it hasn't gone through
yet. Just a new line. Plated ware. We — both —
feel that it is time to branch out more widely."

"Plated ware?"

Hilda's brows were gathered in calculation but
Mrs. Nearing was not to be div^ted from the sub-
ject. "Mr. Nearing has always lacked daring, but
he thought of this himself. I shall be glad" — Mrs.
Nearing sighed quietly, "to have more for Guy. He
needs scope, I think."

Hilda was silent. The last little boys, playing
late, dashed with their express cart down Nearing
Street; a house door opened opposite, showing a
girl, in a glow of yellow light, greeting a man. At
last Hilda, impulsively, laid her arm across Mrs.
Nearing's lap.

"Oh, Hilda! I have always hoped so much for
Guy — since he was a baby."

"He knows it, I thmk."

"There is no reason he should do just what his
father does. You don't think so, do you?"

"I think Guy must work it out for himself, Mrs.
Nearing."

"I knew you would understand; but Mr. Near-
ing -''

"Mr. Nearing loves the factory," said Hilda gently.
"Where that is concerned it is hard for him to be
just."

"That's it. He's not just. Ima®iife ^JoSsa. ^vft»&?3

110 THE WHITE MOTH

working up that he thinks is the thing for every-
body! That wouldn't do for Guy."

"Guy isn't a plodder."

"Certainly he is not, Hilda. But Guy has great
determination, when he likes a thing."

"Yes," said Hilda, putting her honest and experi-
enced thought on the subject, "he has."

"That's why, dear, I want him to find the thing
that really appeals to him. Paris was a mistake.
I only hope he hasn't suffered too much from it."

"Mrs. Nearing! He isn't ill!"

Hilda sat up, her voice suddenly ringing in the
darkness.

"Oh no, dear. No. Not that I know of. But —
you're a business woman, Hilda. I suppose I can
talk about this to you. Of course Guy hasn't said
anything. But he's been through some experience,
something sad, something that — he feels — bitter
about."

"A woman," said Hilda.

"Well dear, of course young men meet all sorts of
people. I don't know anything about it. He hasn't
mentioned her.'^

"Then he's not — thinking of marrying."

"Oh, no. Nothing of that sort. Guy would tell
me if it were that." Mrs. Nearing, in motherly
security, folded her hands, unmindful of the un-
lovely vistas she had revealed.

"I hope Guy has not been hurt," said Hilda.

THE WHITE MOTH 111

Mrs. Nearing, to-night, was wistfully confiding.
Sitting thoughtfully a while, she suddenly ventured.
"Hilda — I sometimes thought there might come to
be something between Guy and you. You used to
write, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Hilda. And then, very slowly, with
calm eyes fixed before her, she voiced the matter
never approached between her and Guy's mother.

"Guy and I were once," said Hilda, "what school
children call in love. It was one of those boy and
girl affairs that no one expects to continue. It was
all over long ago."

CHAPTER yill

"Have we got everything?''

'The sandwiches can go between my feet/^

"Oh, look out!"

The canoes were loading at the little landing below
the high school. Cato voices were the same this
year as they had been .years ago, Cato sunshine was
as brilliant. The little flie^ danced, as always in
the shadows below the river bank, the birch and
aspen leaned over to brush the faces of laughing
canoeists.

They were all laughing: canoe parties always
went oflf in a whirl of gaiety. But beneath the
jollity, there was many a pair of eyes above a
tanned neck and a brilliant sweater, which turned
toward the landing to see in which canoe the tallest
man in the party was going. Cato parties had had
an extra savor, for the last month, because of this
man's presence; people wore their best dresses much
oftener; sometimes there happened the unheard of
phenomenon of a new dress in the middle of the
sunmier. The new man appreciated such things
and his way of showing his appreciation was also
new and sometimes breath taking. Cato girls found
themselves blooming into sophistication.

112

THE WHITE MOTH 113

"It was rather a personal thing to say, but of
course, men don't mean anything by that/'

Girls say that sort of thing a great many years
before they believe it.

The new man was going with Elsie Rice, willowy
and orchid colored in a new frock she had brought
back from Chicago. Little Ethel Byers, just out
of high school, had hoped till the last minute and
now she was settling into her brother Joe's canoe,
silent, with her smooth face a deep pink under the
fluffy yellow hair.

''Where's Hil Plaisted?" said somebody. "It's
Saturday. I thought she was coming."

"Couldn't get off," said Joe Byers, busily stowing
baskets. "I saw her at the Works this noon. But
she said she'd walk down for supper and bring the
salad."

"Well then, I hope Hil comes!" Fat Eddy Rey-
nolds tumbled into his canoe and took up the
paddle, beaming with his idea of a joke. "Are you
leading, Guy?"

"Oh, not in the least. Do go on."

Elsie did not hurry with settling her ruffles, and
many a canoe, as it forged ahead toward the busi-
nesslike goal of sandwiches and salad, carried a
girl whose eyes turned wonderingly now and then
toward the two who whispered until the party was
out of sight.

"Here we are, oh ! All out and M\ftfcxixM^aM^Rs.\sst

114 THE WHITE MOTH

refreshments. This boat leaves at ten o'clock for
Cato Cutlery Works and points east!"

"Ten o'clock ! Oh, Eddy, too early ! " There was
a storm of protest from the girls, scrambling to the
leaf-strewn bank, their hands on the shoulders of
devoted cavaliers.

"Oh, well, that's just a — what does Guy say?"

*'Fagon de dire/' Ethel Byers spoke up, both
frightened and proud and afterward went a perma-
nent pink.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! How does Ethel know French !
Will you teach me, Ethel? French lessons must be
lots of fun!"

Joe Byers said gruffly: "Three words worth."

''Why, here's Guy V

Toward the open bank, already strewn with lunch
baskets and lively with girls in crumpled skirts, the
last canoe swept round the bend. It came with un-
hurried grace, gliding out of the shadows of a side
stream : its silhouette was alluring, the woman lean-
ing back, the man forward, dropping a last smiling
word, not meant for ears on the bank.

"You didn't waste much time in spite — " Eddy
Reynolds offered, grinning broadly, lemonade ladle
in hand.

"Mr. Nearing didn't forget paddling in Paris."
A girl on the bank, where the canoe landed, smiled
up at him.

"Nor rrr- peoplc."

THE WHITE MOTH 115

"Are you going on with the P^s?"

"May I? I used to call you Peggy r— once.'^

"Oh, did you — Guy?"

"He doesn't look older, do you think, people?"

"Younger." Peggy was daring. "But I'm afraid
of that sophisticated look in his eyes."

"Pooh! Guy was always sophisticated. Going
to mix the drinks, Guy?"

Guy knelt by the basket of ingredients while the
girls hovered adventurously near. It was true he
hardly looked older. Fascinated and nonplussed,
Cato had judged, on first seeing him: "That boy
hasn't grown up at all ! " That was not strictly true.
There were certain shadows about his eyes, he had
a sharper chiselling, a cooler poise, but the old boyish
gaiety was still there. It had an effect of magic on
Cato, where boys went straight from high school to
liie mill and gaiety lapsed. But Guy was untouched
by the drudging responsibility of Joe Byers and
Eddy Reynolds. For him^ the wander-years of
dreaming and adventure were still in full flood and
routine only a dull hearsay. His lot had been cast
in the more privileged atmosphere of extended youth
and glorified possibility.

"I think I have to have more sugar." He was
smiling up engagingly at his waiting corps of
assistants.

"Oh, take Ethel!" That was Eddy, of course.

Little Ethel Byers, with her teeth set, said chok-
ingly: "It's on the tree stump."

116 THE WHITE MOTH

"Ethel/' Guy begged her whimsically, "I'm afraid
of tree stumps unless they have dryads in them."

'Well, here goes."

Eddy picked the candidate for dryad up bodily and
set her, white shoes very small and skirts very high,
on the tree stump. Ethel did not step down.

"Take her off ! Take her off ! "

''JVhere to?" Guy's eyes were daring.

"OH, settle it between you. Why not Niagara
Falls. Isn't it still the place for — "

There were several people and a pile of sandwiches
between Guy and the elm stump. They all re-
mained quite undamaged, but, in another minute,
amid breathless shrieks of laughter, Ethel was swept
from the stump and disappeared into the sumac
thicket in Guy's arms.

"That's too much. Shall we go after them?"

"Oh, be sports!"

"Mr. Nearing's foreign way is so different."

When they returned, a moment later, Ethel with
cheeks very pink remained outside the circle. Guy
took his place beside Elsie Bauerman.

"They're quite right," she told him demurely.
"You are sophisticated. Did you learn to love over
there?"

"Or learned there's no such thing." It was then
the shadows about his eyes showed, but the remark
could hardly be called other th^ boyish. He was
answered by a flash from Elsie's dark eyes, also not

THE WHITE MOTH 117

unsophisticated, "Perhaps we both have more dis-
coveries to make."

"Isthatadarer

"Only conversation. I'm trying to think up a
subject for our trip home. You're paddling me?
Or aren't you?"

"Guy! Hey! Where's the claret lemonade?"

"C'est fait Gather roimd, fellow artists."

"Are you a bond fide artist, Guy?"

"Not on your life. That was just a study year.
But it's a lot more fun to have something to work
at than just travel around the way some people do."

"Now we're all ready but the salad. Where the
dickens is HU?"

"Oh, she's made it out of nails and steel filings by
mistake and she's mixing in some mayonnaise to
soften it."

"Hilda? Hilda Plaisted?" Guy looked up from
the punch, causing Elsie Bauerman at his elbow to
look up also. "Does Hilda eat nails?" Guy jested
hastily.

"Oh, my lord, man! Hilda Plaisted half runs
the purchasing department. I should think you'd
know."

"What is a purchasing department?"

Joe Byers did not know whether it was HUda,
or the Works, or the giggles of the company which
caused this debonair detachment. He compressed
the explanation he had been generously ready to

118 THE FHITE MOTH

make, Hilda's position at the Works being better
than his.

"Why — you buy — ^the steel. And bones. To
make cutlery.''

*'Ma joir The new man's attention was quite
genuinely caught.

"I wonder," Elsie Bauerman meditated, drawing
an orchid-colored fold through her fingers, "whether
one could like to buy steel — and clothes too. What
would a Parisian say?"

"I bet that's HH."

But it was the youngest boy, with no special lady,
who went to meet her.

"Not late, is it? You people forgot the paper
napkins. I knew you would, so I stopped at Mrs.
Byers' to get them."

Hilda stepped out of the bush-bordered path that
led to the high-road half a mile away. She was
rather a burdened Hilda, with a basket in one hand
and a package in the other, slow at letting them go,
too, because the youngest boy was uninitiated into
the sacredness of salad.

"Why, little Ethel Byers," said Hilda. "You look
tired!"

"Ho ho!"

"Come and fix the sandwiches, Hil. You're the
only one that knows which ones were packed where."

"And Hil, is this the table cloth? And where on
earth are the salt and pepper?"

THE WHITE MOTH 119

"I'll fix this, shall I? And nobody's been to the
sprmg for water yet."

Hilda, kneeling on the ground, was already at
work. She gave, in her white dress, an impression
of serene effectiveness. It was an almost maternal
effectiveness, bringing no rival to the other girls.
They turned to, domestically, to help her.

"Hil, here's an old love of yours."

It must be admitted that, for the moments after
Hilda was announced, Guy had been busy with
Elsie Bauerman. But now he had scrambled for-
ward.

"Hil! Want to see little boy next door? Why,
you grown-up, magnificent Hilda Plaisted!"

She had a plate in each hand. Her face was
flushed under the thick, parted brown hair.

"I got your post card from Paris," said Hilda.

'Tfou didn't answer it. You didn't tell me you
hoped I'd come home."

Elsie was patently waiting : Ethel Byers patently
listening. A certain strain in their attitude relaxed
at Hilda's answer, whole-hearted, almost maternal.
"I hope you're having a good rest here now you've
come, Guy."

He lingered a minute. "But I never see you."

"Hilda works for a living. What do you think^
man?"

That saved Hilda's answer, so what she said was:^
"We're ready, people, if Henry has the water."

120 THE WHITE MOTH

By common consent^ it was Hilda who made the
table arrangements. While boys maneuvered care-
fully among tree stumps and rocks to find com-
fortable backs for their girls and adjacent places for
themselves, her post was conceded to be behind the
sandwich box, where she could produce salt and
pickles and olives.

Joe Byers, somewhat placated by a seat on one
side of Elsie, started conversation : "Say, Hil, heard
any more about Witmer's going?"

"They've increased the offer. I believe he's think-
ing of it."

Joe Byers was an inveterate talker of shop.
"Hilda's boss may be going," he explained with a
sidelong look at Elsie's back. "Light out and leave
her to find a new one."

"Take me, Hil!"

"At Witmer's salary? No, me!"

'With Witmer's privileges? Why not me?"

"Do you know what Witmer's privileges are,
Guy?" Hilda smiled without rajncor at the last
questioner.

"He buys steel. And bones. To make cutlery.
And talks to you about it every morning. I bet I
could improve on Witmer's talks with his assistant."

"By having fewer witnesses present. Ha ha!"

"Are you thinking of coming into the Works,
Guy?"

She wanted to know: her blue eyes were thought-

THE WHITE MOTH 121

fill. And the others, realizing that high finance was
beiifig discussed^ and the heir of the Works revealing
his intentions^ lent an ear.

"Do you invite me?"

"Not to the purchasing department/'

Guy hugged his knees, laughing at her. "Ah, but
I^d make quite a chic boss. Don't you honestly
think so — Hildare?"

At that word the impersonal Hilda flushed as
deeply as Ethel Byers. That she made no retort
whatever passed unnoticed, because Hilda was not
given to retorts. Elsie Bauerman hid her by lean-
ing forward.

"It's ladies you want to boss, not work."

"It's ladies I want to see exist, not work."

Cato was silent in the face of this philosophy and
even its sponsor went no further. Perhaps the new
fomid point of view was a little painful to sustain.
At any rate, his conversation changed to low words
with Elsie.

"Guy! TeU us about that student riot in Paris!"

"One was drunk."

"You mean two hundred were. Gee, it must have
been a lark ! "

The girls, rather fearsomely, accepted this point
of view, not generic in Cato- The narrative soared
on to realms of debonair vandalism. Guy ended:
"It was quaint, you know."

"Oh," breathed Cato. "Yes."

f
122 THE WHITE MOTH

"It must be stunning to be an artist, Guy!"

Guy, leaning back with his hands behind his head,
surveyed the flickering fire and the dark tree trunks
contentedly. "One amused oneself," he confessed.
"So why not!"

The stars were reflected in the still reach of water
beyond the bank, the low evening breeze was rustling
the birch leaves.

"Late moon tonight," said the practical Joe Byers.
"Be good and dark getting around the bend."

"Let's shake again for partners going home," pro-
posed some enterprising aspirant. "Got an extra
girl now, anyway."

"Oh," said Hilda, "I want to walk the way I came.
The salad bowl came from Mrs. Marks on the state
road and she wants it tomorrow for the church
luncheon."

"Well, Hil, you can't go alone!"

Hilda was picking up the supper dishes: she
turned obligingly to say : "Well, then, whoever lives
nearest, come with me."

It was dark, especially there under the trees, and
no one could see whether Hilda's face went terrified
after that innocent slip or not. Every one in Cato
knew where every one else lived and the Nearings
and the Plaisteds had been next door to one an-
other for twenty years. Guy, concealed in the
shadow beside Elsie Bauerman, leaned forward gal-
lantly :

THE WHITE MOTH 123

"You invite me to something, if not the purchas-
ing department?"

"Oh — I — "

"It was raw, Hil, but you've got him."

From the darkness where Hilda sat there came no
answer at all. Elsie was heard to laugh low and
alluring: "Oh, you must."

There was a scrambling and a heaving up of
baskets. A gh'l whispered to another in the dark:
"That may have been, but, my dear, he hasn't been
with her at all." Guy held Elsie's sweater: "A
demain. Yes?" Then the chatting party began
to shove off from the bank.

"Where is the famous salad bowl?"

Guy, smiling, was facing Hilda among the re-
mains. She thrust it toward him violently as if he
had suspected her of inventing it. "But I can
carry it."

"Oh, ladies never carry salad bowls. Only steel
rails — and kegs of naUs — and — and — "

"Puppy dogs' tails."

It was a reminder of an old children's chant.
Hilda was nervous, it had slipped out unaware be-
cause she was so deadly anxious not to say anything
personal. But the old words could not help but
carry them back a little. He laughed and took her
elbow gently: "It's dark among these bushes."

Guy guiding Hilda among the wood paths of Cato,
which she knew like her own hand!

124 THE WHITE MOTH

''111 go ahead/' he said ''and hold the bushes
back.''

Conversation was avoided that way, too. For a
while they tramped silently, in pitch blackness where
they could hear each other breath, where her hand
sometimes touched his as she passed him, holding
a springy branch for her. She sprang back hastily
when that happened and he proceeded in a business-
like way, his feet cracking the dead sticks of the
path.

"We ought to be just about at the road, now."

"Oh, ought we?" Immense impersonality in his
tone, too.

"Don't you think you turn to the right somewhere
here?"

"WeU, turn to the right."

He tiuned and she was thankful that he walked
in silence. She thought of nothing but to follow
as ably as she could so that she might never need a
supporting hand. He cast a polite remark now and
then but after a while it was she who broke the
silence : "Guy — you're on a path, aren't you?"

"More or less. These bushes grow every which
way."

"Do you mind — let me look!"

She edged past him, he gave her a hand and she
accepted it so as not to stumble into his arms. She
could see liiat they were in a little open track, but
laurel bushes often leave such. Hilda, with her

THE WHITE MOTH 125

brain thronging with other memories, tried desper-
ately to recollect just how the open track on which
they ought to be should look.

"Way clear, captain?"

"I — don't see anything I recognize."

"Oh, well, let's go on anyway."

He was bored and cross: pushing one's way
through springy bushes is pleasant only under cer-
tain circumstances. Hilda followed mute, but her
brain began gradually to clear and turn itself to
the present situation.

"Guy!"

"Yes?"

"I'm afraid we're only getting further off the track
this way."

"Oh, Lord! Where may the track be about to
be?"

"I'll try to think."

He left the whole matter in her hands, as though
Cato and its woods were no concern of his.

"I am sorry," Hilda said, very humbly. "I really
have lost my bearings. You can tell where the
track joins the road by the big blasted oak tree."

"Oh, yes. Big blasted oak tree. Do you think
it could be that over there? Or that?"

Hilda strained her eyes, passionately anxious to
make out the stark, leaning form. In that light
there were a dozen streaks against the sky which
might be blasted oak trees. He lit a match, but it

126 THE WHITE MOTH

was not helpful. It only showed them leaves and
sticks on the ground and no evidence of a path.

"Kismet/' said Guy. "I understand there is a
moon later in the night. I don't quite see what one
does except to wait about and let it light us. Moons
are supposed to do that. Do you agree?"

"It'll come about midnight."

'Well, that's a decent hour. I think you can
sit on this log. May I smoke?"

He lit a match. Hilda saw nothing but his hands,
long and straight : almost the last time she had seen
them they had held hers. After a while her perverse
practicality forced from her:

"You don't have to stand up. There is room on
the log."

"How good of you."

In the dark she felt him sink beside her. Hilda
had never been alone in dark woods with a man nor,
perhaps, had Guy with a woman. She did not know
the memories which flooded upon him now were not
those of a canoe rocking near the bank while the
distant bell tolled for prayer meeting. She did not
know that the person he visioned beside him was not
the girl he had kissed because she lived next door,
but the woman he thought of as his first love. Yet
neither was over twenty-five.

"You've become — a business woman, I think."

"Not very much of one."

"Not much of one — really?"

THE WHITE MOTH 127

He seemed to find it easier, in the dark, to speak
even to Hilda as he would to another woman. She
broke in brusquely: "You enjoyed it in Paris?"

To her clear tones he was not ready with an
answer. He moved restlessly and as he did so, his
hand touched Hilda's. He held it.

"Oh!"

"I suppose you don't remember." It was the
very devil of habit that made Guy take that easy
path. She answered him :

"I remember."

"It's quite a long time."

She suddenly choked, the lump in her throat too
painful for words. She waited for Guy to explain
and Guy, holding her hand, felt nothing: confused,
painful memories, confused, warm sensations. At
this time he should have been with Elsie Bauerman,
talking as he had vowed to talk with every woman
henceforth. They said it was easy and Guy, too
short a time ago, had vowed all his youthful pride
to the defense of taking love as a game.

"Did you find it a long time, Hildare?"

Still she could not answer.

His arm went round her, such an easy place to go.
"You've thought of me sometimes, Hildare? Have
you been so good?"

tie did not see her smile in the dark. There was
no answer.

"HU — Hill"

•*•. >f

128 THE WHITE MOTH

His arm was very close: no one could pretend
that an embrace like that came from any one but
a lover. And Hilda succumbed to it. If she had
meant not to, then was the minute to tear herself
away. She did not: she left her head fall to his
shoulder.

'TTou're going to kiss me, Hil, aren't you?"

She had no time to be surprised at the request
from one whose right it was. She soon saw what
it meant. He asked no permission to kiss her: he
wanted a return. And after a while, breathless but
whole hearted, Hilda gave it.

"Oh, Hil, you love me! You must love me!"

She had hardly spoken all this time: she did not
speak now for a few minutes. But at last, in the
intense silence of the woods, leaning close against
him, Hilda said :

^TTes, Guy. I have always loved you. I have
never loved any one else. I never will. I belong
to you."

He seized her like a whirlwind. Those were not
the kisses which Hilda remembered, nor of which
she had dreamed. She suffered from them in help-
less silence and then she waited for Guy to go on,
to go back, to their old bond of years ago, to the
life promises and the life plans.

Hilda had kissed Guy, one firm steady pressure
of the lips. But his were constant, hungry. Hilda
had never been kissed on her eyes, her ears, her

THE WHITE MOTH 129

throat; she had never been kissed by any one but
Guy, years ago. He could not see in the darkness
how her face changed. She could not see how there
was in his eyes the memory, not for her, but of
someone else, challenging and stinging. She yielded
to him, because she had just told him that she
loved him: what else should she do? And he
clasped her because Chiquette had told him one
found happiness that way. It was Fate's imkind-
ness that the supple body on the log beside him
happened to belong to Hilda.

"Oh — a minute, Guy."

"How thick your hair is! Will it come down if
I run my fingers through it like this?"

"Please — please not."

"The moon won't see."

"I believe it's coming. We ought to go."

"I'm going to think of you always when I see
moonlight. Or woods. Do you know, I may be
going to South America soon? May I think of you
when I see moonlight on the pampas? And will
you remember that I'm doing it?"

" — Remember?"

'^es. No matter whom you're seeing it with."
His lips brushed her hair. "Sweet Hilda ! I'm glad
you came with me tonight."

"You're going — to South America, Guy!"

"Perhaps. Why not?"

"For — long?"

130 THE WHITE MOTH

"Oh, the Lord knows, my beautiful gracious lady.
But I don't believe the moonlight there is any nicer
than here. Moonlight is yours."

In the rising light it was just possible to see
Hilda's face. It struck Guy that moonlight pro-
duced a rather terrible pallor. Of all the words she
might have said, it never occurred to Hilda to say
one, Hilda who had opened her heart completely and
been told that the moonlight was hers. She rose
from the log unsteadily : she seemed, not tragic, but
dazed and absent minded.

"I can see my way home," she said. "Don't
come."

"But — why, how absurd!"

She pushed past him, not omitting to take the
salad bowl from his hand.

"Why, Hilda, did I offend youf

How can one tell a man he has offended one when
he has offered an evening's flirtation instead of a
lifelong love ! Hilda's voice was almost breaking.

"Don't come. I said — don't come."

"I heard you, but you're quite mad. Was it
wrong to kiss you? I thought you liked it."

It was humiliation too painful for words that
saved Hilda from making an answer to that. She
was already some distance away and he was help-
lessly following her.

"There!" she pointed. "That's the blasted tree.
You can get to it any way through the bushes."

THE WHITE MOTH 131

"You must really let me go with you to the
road."

She gave up liie imequal struggle and only turned
without a word. He followed, at her headlong speed.
But to find words which would call attention from
the vigorous back was difficult.

At the road she stopped, her voice quite expres-
sionless. "I'm going to stop at Mrs. Marks' and
then home. The road's quite plain."

"I hope you understand, Hilda — "

Then, with her voice breaking with sobs, feeling
nothing but the agonized necessity to be away from
him without any more effort, Hilda babbled :

"Oh, yes. It's quite all right. I understand. Of
course. You don't mind letting me go on."

CHAPTER IX

"Sort of cloudy, Mother. I think TU take my
umbrella/'

^Tes, do, dear/'

It was Mr. and Mrs. Nearing, saying their morn-
ing good-by in the hall. Their words floated up to
Guy, awakening from that dreary half-hour of
dreams that succeeds a sleepless night. Perhaps he
should have felt ready this morning to apologize
to Hilda and to curse himself. His mental state
was unbearable enough for that, but some hitch
of pride forbade. Guy, so far, was not used to
cursing himself. Instead, as he opened his eyes,
there came upon him a gust of loathing for Cato,
where plodding men kissed their wives good-by
every mornmg with the very same words; where
there was no outlet for unhappiness but in some
mistake imendurable to remember.

The lawns outside were already astir; wagons
rumbled down Nearing Street; at the house beyond
the syringa hedge someone was hanging out washing.
There had been times in the last years when Guy
had thought of these things with a lonely affection.
Some yague plan had shimmered in his mind, of

132

THE WHITE MOTH 133

returning to the Works to see them revivified by a
new knowledge of beauty and usefuhiess. That
plan, without his knowledge, had been extinguished
during the night. The Cato Cutlery Works at pres-
ent stood in the same town with a girl whom he
could not face. And because of Hilda and her
quiet inescapability, the Works had become anath-
ema, with the town which contained them. Guy
reached violently for the letter which had come
from South America. It meant a change, at least,
and for the present he could not see beyond that.
The thing he wanted was action. Why not in
Argentina as well as another place?

As he caught the letter toward him with a destruc-
tive arm, there was a timid knock at the door. It
was Mrs. Nearing, rather apologetic, for she had
learned that even if a son stays in bed until eleven,
he may not be ill.

"Just to know if you're going to be home to
lunch, dear — "

"Father going to be here?"

"Why, of course." (Would James Nearing be in
his chocolate-colored mansion when the factory
closed for the noon hoiu*! Guy sometimes shrugged
over foolishness in his mother: she felt a patient
superiority to him just then.)

"Want to see him, I guess."

There was some new note in the tone that set
Mrs. Nearing's heart to quickening painfully. Ah,

134 THE WHITE MOTH

she had heard it before. It was the note that
thrilled of distance: it meant that her boy was not
content with the things she could give him, and
that she knew were not enough. Mrs. Nearing
must have been getting older, for it used to thrill
her too with the glory and the possibility; now it
made her cry.

"Guy dear, your father is thinking of taking up
some new lines in the factory, something that will
mean a good deal more money — and scope.*'

She was wistful. He did not recognize the plea
that the words carried.

"Why that's good. Moth."

His tone was absent, but when he saw her face
he reached out a hand to pull her to the bedside.

"Let's hear what you're going to do, you two
schemers. It is a plan of yoims. Lady?"

"Not mine, of course."

She had sat down beside him, almost timidly, the
strain smoothing instantly from her face. "You
know I don't dictate in your father's affairs."

"Pretty hands, Moth."

"Oh Guy!" She smiled quickly.

One of the hands had gone caressingly to his hair.
There was a keen, secret satisfaction in admiring
Guy's hair. After all, it was like hers.

"But I understand this will be quite a large under-
taking."

"Will^ eh? More power to your elbows. They

THE WHITE MOTH 135

do use elbow grease in making cutlery? Lots of it,
I expect."

Guy's attitude was that of a clever older person
encouraging children. Mrs. Nearing, a slender hand
on his^ felt warmed and pacified.

"Think they're going to make money, Moth?
Florins, ducats, things to buy ladies black velvet
dresses and limousines? I say, you'd look wonder-
ful in pearls — "

Guy's conversation was so fantastic.

"Pearls in Cato, my child!"

"Why not? Or go away from Cato."

At that Mrs. Nearing's handsome face assumed
again its strained, wistful look. It was a look that
sat well on well cut features; Guy had become
accustomed to it. It only struck him now how
handsome his mother looked when the glow of pleas-
ure and pride replaced the wistfulness.

"like to go away from Cato, beautiful lady?
Such a rash idea. Whatever would the chief of
the factory say?"

"My place is with your father, dear. I — I do
not expect to get away from here — now."

And how noble she looked — and quiet! Her
hand stroked his hair gently, her voice was a little
tremulous. "It's you who must do the going away
for all of us. That is what I have always hoped,
my child. Your father and I will do the plodding
part; the brilliant one is to\>Q\d\» lot ^csvi?

136 THE WHITE MOTH

'^Who am brilliant? Nice to finish the compli-
ment that way, dearest."

She even flushed a little. "You know what I
think, dear."

"Well, then" — he reached for the letter — "I've
thought of a fine place to go. What do you say,
duchessef South America. A ranch, great fortune,
life of a wild free gentleman, president of a re-
public next revolution!"

"A ranch, Guy?" She was not disappointed, only
a little puzzled and waiting.

"Got a letter from Rawson." His own look was
not exactly exuberant. "I told you about the art.
It was understood in the beginning I wasn't neces-
sarily an artist."

"There's plenty of time."

He laughed, stretching restlessly. "Let us hope.
Heaven knows what I wouldn't have to turn my
hand to if there wasn't time. Why are all jobs so
duU, Moth?"

"You have a great deal of ability."

It was her unconscious answer to an unacknowl-
edged challenge.

Guy threw both arms above his head. "Art's
good for training, of course. Broadens your outlook,
and it was lots of fun. But, I'll tell you here in
our privacy, with no hardware officials listening, that
the best part of it was knowing the fellows, getting
up a club we had, and all that."

THE WHITE MOTH 137

"The Van Wycks were always socially sought
after/'

He smiled somewhat wryly as he stroked her hand.
'Well, considering that painting is no real forte of
mine^ mightn't I as well find some occupation a
little nearer earth?"

"The factory, Guy?"

"Oh thunder, beloved. I mean real earth. Prim-
itive earth. Rawson writes about a ranch he's
bought."

"Don't you feel well yet, dear? Do you think
you need the country?"

There was a real note of tenderness in his voice.
"I'm all right. And I've been out of college a year
or so now. I suppose I really ought to think up
something."

There was such conscientiousness in his tone that
she was smitten with remorse. "Not unless you've
foimd the thing you like to do, Guy. Your father
is quite able to let you get your education and look
around."

"Nice Lady Mother. And I suppose it's really
nothing against a ranch if I think it sounds rather
fun?"

He smiled at that, and the smile was so per-
suasive and delightful that all other considerations
floated away into the irrevelant. He elucidated to
her eager silence :

"It's a business in that it wajit'a — ^'aSi^^ ^«?3 -

138 THE WHITE MOTH

capital. But dad's got plenty. Might as well let
it have a party in South America if he can't give
it one here. I don't believe capital likes Cato. Al-
ways heard it was jolly sagacious. Must be bored
to tears."

Mrs, Hearing was thinking of something, but it
was not one of the things she ever told her son.
She finished the problem with a shake of her head.
"I will explain to your father."

"So awfully convenient of you, darling, because
then I shan't lose my temper. You like the ranch
idea yourself — yes?"

She smiled down at him gently. "Of course there
is time for you to do that. You're very yoimg
stm — "

He ran an irritated hand through the hair she
had been smoothing. "Oh, as for that — I But
father has the money and I haven't the factory
flair — just now. So it seems simple. Don't it
seem simple. Mere MerveHleuseV^

"My dear boy, I want you to be happy. That
comes first."

He pulled her to him with an amoimt of rough-
ness that added spice to the caress. "Oh well, listen,
darling. I expect to be just as big a magnate as
you want me to. Only, Lord knows, there's heaps
of time. Maybe when I get through with ranching
I'll be ready to come back and go into partnership
with dad. Or why don't you get him to build a

THE WHITE MOTH 139

branch works and let me fool with it? That would
be something like!''

^Tfour father thinks you need training first, Guy."

"Piffle! What'U happen when I have 'em any-
way ?''

It was hardly a tactful allusion, but Mrs. Nearing,
her son's arm about her, let it pass without a shock.

'TVe hope to leave them to you in good shape at
least, dear."

" We ! ' You talk like a devil of a financier.
Go to it, mother dearest!"

"I must go to look after lunch."

She was dignified but flushed. Guy's caresses were
not inexpert. At the door she paused :

"You can have your breakfast in bed. I thought
when I came in you looked as if you hadn't slept
much last night."

"Oh! No." Mrs. Nearing was alarmed at the
black change in his face.

"Don't get up at all if you don't feel well."

"I'm all right. G'by, Mother."

She closed the door, shut out. Guy's gracefulness
ceased when something worried hun. A Uttle later
she heard the front door slam. Guy's rapid, angry
steps were trjdng to escape the facts, down Nearing
Street,

"Why, there's Hilda," said Mrs. Nearing at the
kitchen window. "I wonder if she'll ask him there
to lunch."

140 THE WHITE MOTH

Mrs. Nearing moved to the pantry: she did not
see that minute's encounter. It would have fright-
ened her, would have frightened anyone, whether
a stranger to love and scorn and heart-rending dis-
illusion or no. After it Hilda walked up the
Plaisteds' path counting the steps and using a mur-
derous effort of will to accomplish each one. She
opened the door, ready to scream with terror lest
a small brother or sister or a good-humored parent
should be behind it. There was no one. Hilda
could not climb the stairs. She turned into the
parlor, vacant and orderly at lunch time. She sank
on the sofa, brown, with red roses and satin cushions,
whose cords were looped at the comers. Hilda was
never afraid of death after that, nor even curious
as to its awful onsweep. Hilda had seen it, anni-
hilating and terrible, as a wave come to drown a
helpless castaway panting at a cliff's foot. She had
seen the man she had loved all her life, and who
yesterday had killed that love just to pass the time,
come sauntering toward her and lift his hat.

She did not know what her face was like, and
by one of those chances that oppose felicity in little
things to tragedy in the great ones, none of her
family saw it. Guy had been the only observer.
He came full on her as he passed through his gate
and Hilda approached hers. Guy was deeply at odds
with life, struggling not to think about the thing
that had gone so wrong with him. Then he saw

THE WHITE MOTH 141

the face of Hilda whom he had kissed. Never,
before or after that, had Guy such a fire-clear picture
of himself as he looked to someone who despised him.
Even Hilda, in words, could never have told him
what her face said then.

Hilda did not speak. Hilda, after that one glance
which he had met, without her will, turned her head
away. She walked up the Plaisteds' path and Guy
saw their door close behind her.

The feeling of shock had been hardly supportable:
it gave way to one of rage. Guy did not know what
made him feel weak and more luihappy than he
had ever been in his life ; he did not want to know.
He beat oflf the possibility of knowing. Instead he
hated the woman who had looked at him like that :
he hated the sidewalk where she had stood and the
house into which she had turned, the street which
held the house and the town which held the street.
His thoughts were a burning rage.

All that Mrs. Nearing saw was that her son, after
passing the girl next door, went on down the street.

"All right, Helga," she said, "we'll be three for
lunch."

But the lunch hour arrived; Mr. Nearing plodded
up the steps and, because he must soon plod down
them again, they sat down to eat. Guy had not
come.

"James — > Guy spoke to me about a plan — "

"He did?" Mr. Nearing looked u^ N^rj ^^^ >

142 THE WHITE MOTH

fork suspended over a codfish-ball. But the gleam
died instantly out of his mild, blue eyes: he must
have recognized that it was the sort of plan of which
he had heard before. "We'll have a big job, Laura,
with my scheme for the plated ware," he countered,
timidly aware what his strength amounted to when
pitted against his son's.

Mrs. Nearing only said: "Guy's scheme is some-
thing about — South America."

"Well — he wants to leave Cato, I suppose.
Hasn't had enough gadding yet?"

"James, he's very young."

"Is it anything that's going to give him a start
at work?"

"Guy has so many possibilities, James."

Mr. Nearing went on with the codfish ball: his
appetite was unassailable.

"Laiu'a, it's a big move, this plated ware. I'm
investing a lot in it."

"I'm sure you are going to do wonderfully, dear."

It was not as though she had not said it before,
nor expressed with the zest for a new thing. But
even yet Mrs. Nearing's eyes lit with an eagerness
to push a man forward.

"That win be so nice for Guy, dear."

"Oh, yes."

He pushed the finished plate away and rose. Mr.
Nearing's air was not actually weary: it had a
slowness as of year-long resignation. He went to

THE WHITE MOTH 143

the window to look at the weather before going out,
a habit conserved from farm days^ inveterate.

"Here's Guy, dear, Helga, I want you to make
some fresh codfish cakes.''

"Don't want any. Can you wait a minute,
father?"

They were both surprised at Guy's face. It some-
times expressed determination quite as positive as
his father's, but of a different kind. Guy having
made a decision was not always an easy person to
deal with. At this moment he looked strained,
even wild. Mrs. Nearing put her hand to her heart
and, but for the grim concentration of his eyes,
would have asked if he were ill. Tremulously she
proffered : "I've been telling your father, dear — "

"I thmk I'll get off next week, Mother."

"Out of the country?" It was Mr. Nearing, slow
and expressionless.

"Out of the country." Guy was expressionless
too. If he had been like his mother this morning
he was like his father now. He had not even ap-
proached the family table. In the door, hands in
pockets, a fierce light in his eyes, he stood eyeing the
two who spoke for Cato.

"What will you go on?"

Mr. Nearing was standing too, and his eyes were
hard, not with rage but with timid desperation.

"On my nerve. Have you any objection?"

"Oh Guy, Guy, you mu3tn'tl"

144 THE WHITE MOTH

Mrs. Nearing spoke rapidly^ and her husband's
stoUd eyes were raised to her, unwmking.

^'JameS; dear^ I want you to let me explain it.
One of Guy's friends is making this investment in
a — farm for raising cattle^ isn't it/ dear? And he
wants Guy to go in with him. Not permanently,
perhaps. Just for an interesting experiment for a
year or two. I really think it will do the boy good
— that outdoor life.''

"Is there money in it?"

"What the hell do I know?"

"We've talked it all over, James. Guy has ex-
plained to me very carefully. I really think it would
be a good thing. I should be glad to have him
do it."

It was her verdict, offered more hastily, perhaps,
because of her husband's opposition. Mr. Nearing
heard it and said nothing at aU.

"I wish you'd tell him all about it, Guy."

Guy in the door, impatience glinting in his eyes,
spoke carelessly. "I suppose you feel I ought to
go to work. Though that isn't an opinion shared
by other people's fathers who are willing to give
beauty and culture a little chance to live, too.
Very well. Here's a proposition. Ranches are work
enough, I understand. A friend of mine's bought
one in South America. He wants me as a partner."

"Have you ever managed a ranch?"

"I have not." There had been other retorts on

THE WHITE MOTH 145

the tip of Guy's tongue, but retorts lost their savor
with James Nearing. One felt he could not under-
stand them. He stood now, looking at the floor in
in silence. He was not a passionate man, and when
he spoke the sharpness of his first tones was gone.
Doggedly he stated: "There's the Works."

"My Godr

The obstinate, nuddle-aged man and the vivid and
angry young one crossed glances, too sharply stirred
for words. There was no help or encouragement
for Guy in the quiet maker of knives, whose puzzled
eyes regarded him with helpless disapproval. All
the son's reserves of wilfulness and impatience and
scorn rose to the surface. "Thanks, Father. I
haven't a taste for cutlery."

Mr. Nearing heard it as a condemned man after
repeated trials and appeals might hear his sentence.
The finality of his silence may have struck Guy too.
"Good heavens!" he appealed in a despairing
protest, "it isn't necessary to save one's soul, is it?"

"Of course not, Guy. We will never force you
to spend your life doing something you don't like."

"Guy's eyes sought his mother's ruefully. He was
more than ready for the interview to end; there
was load enough pressing upon him already. But
he could not leave her with that beaten look.
"Cheer up. Moth I I say, I shan't be ranching for-
ever. Isn't there all the time in the world?"

"I want you to be happy, dear."

146 THE WHITE MOTH

And more than that. By the light in her dark
eyes as they were turned up at Guy, right under
James Hearing's stolid gaze, it was obvious that all
the treasure of her hopes was still stored with him.
It was for James Nearing to fulfil those hopes.

"Well, then, friends and parents," Guy forced back
the old debonair manner, "isn't the good, kind cut-
lery business going to shed a little hardware in the
form of dollars?"

'Tfes, dear. Your father will let you have what
is needed."

"Thanks awfully, dad. You won't catch any
poison from owning a ranch in South America." His
whimsical tone came back as he watched James
Nearing reach for his hat. "You may even get to
like it."

"I'll let you have what I can, Guy. Yoiu* mother
wants I should."

With a mechanical glance at the clock he moved
toward the door. Half-way to it he remembered
and came back for his good-by kiss to Mrs. Nearing.
She sat rather quietly after the touch of his lips and
then ventured to Guy:

'Tfou don't think you could put off the ranch
for a while?"

Guy's hand fell to her shoulder. They were
caught in a moment of reaction and, for various
reasons, they were both nuserable. He said, with
passionate feeling:

THE WHITE MOTH 147

"I want to be out of here!"

"I know you don't like Cato/* she returned.
"Can I help you pack?"

"All right, darlmg, but don't give me any of
father's props except handkerchiefs. Your hair
looks pretty in the back. Just for that you can
go up ahead of me."

It was very much less than a week later that Guy
was ready. His trunk had been packed without
glances out of the window that looked toward the
syringa hedge. Unaccountably such glances sick-
ened him, and then it was not only Cato that looked
gray — it was the world. He pulled to the blind
on that window on the last morning with a throb of
exultation, because for not one minute since his
meeting with Hilda had that house been out of his
mind.

"It'll be out now," Guy said as he closed the blind.
"It'll be out!" He had not admitted he was think-
ing about that house : he was thinking about alfalfa
and the price of cattle. But nevertheless he had
come to a conclusion, which was this: "If it was
bad, it was so bad that no apology I could make
would be enough." He had writhed at this point,
at the unwilling thought of the words that ntiight be
necessary. "And if it wasn't bad, it doesn't need to
be spoken of at all and she's a fool for thinking it
does."

148 THE WHITE MOTH

For he knew very well that Hilda thought it
needed to be spoken about; but to eat humble pie
was a thing not within the range of Guy Nearing's
possibilities. Nor was it within them ever to meet
Hilda Plaisted on the street again. It was that, per-
haps, which precipitated the decision for South
America, without thought or plan.

All Cato woke up, fascinated at the thought of
that departure. Guy was wearily conscious of the
awe in the greetings of the other men, and of the
dazzled resignation of Elsie Bauerman and Ethel
Byers. It was one thing to take a playtime in
Europe as the epilogue to college : of that they had
heard before, though only as the privilege of princes.
But to come home, still unfettered, and to float
away, still free from the shadow of responsibility —
these things, though no one realized it at the time,
set Guy permanently apart from his old following.
They had used to suppose their leader capable of
anything. Now they still believed him to shine in
realms they did not know of — but not in the realms
they knew.

"Think of all the people he's known! And the
way he can start things 1*'

"I should think Guy could do 'most anjrthing he
wanted.'*

So the young people of Cato. But they had to
admit the reservation — there seemed nothing Guy
wanted. Puzzled, they conceded at last: "Maybe

THE WHITE MOTH 149

it's hard to decide when you've got the whole world
to choose from. . . . It's a good thing, likely, that
everybody isn't rich."

The judgment of the older ones was simpler:
"Looks like the elder's son ain't much of a sticker."

It had been a turning point for Guy, and even he,
in the lapses of his irritation, realized the fact. He
had half thought, on the way home from Europe, of
settling down, of finding something which, to his
own satisfaction and the approval of everyone,
should begin the foundations of the future. But all
that had been swept away and there was no one
but the pitiable and irritating' James Nearing to
remind him of it. It is possible for the passage of
the years to be so veiled that opportunity seems
intact. This had happened to Guy.

"It won't be for always," he had told his mother.
And this was all he had let himself think. Nor did
anyone force him further.

He took leave of his father before the latter went
to his office m the morning.

"Good-by, Guy. Take care of yourself."

Mr. Nearing was without rancor: the ceremony
had hardly delayed him a minute by the clock. He
added, before he went down the steps: "Your mother
wants you to get along well."

In the hall, after the expressman had taken the
tnmk away, Mrs. Nearing clung to her tall son.
"I know about the trouble of writing, dear, but — "

^

150 THE WHITE MOTH

"Oh rather, Moth 1 I never left you without let-
ters. You know I didn't/*

"I know."

Cato had dulled a dramatic expressiveness in Mrs.
Nearing that might have been powerful. There,
in the darkened hall, it showed just for a minute.

"My one son 1 I'll be lonely. But you know how
much I want for you. Go where you like. You'll
make me proud one day^ won't you?"

"Moth, darling!" There were tears in his eyes.
"I don't want to leave you, Moth. You'll come
down to South America. No? Come awfully soon."

"But you'll come back to Cato, Guy."

He laughed reassuringly as he patted the fingers
on his coat-sleeve. "I'll do the town that honor 1"
But in his heart Guy was saying:

"Never! Never! Never!"

CHAPTER X

*WiLL you assure me that the whole shipment of
bones will be up to this sample?"

It was Hilda, at the desk of the purchasing agent,
behind the glass door on the second floor of the
Cato Cutlery Works. She was more assured than
in other days, and better dressed. A certain trustful-
ness, almost childlike, which had lingered about her,
was gone. But Hilda was not crushed: only tran-
quil and with her whole mind free to give to the
business of the Cutlery Works, of which bones hap-
pened to be a part.

The salesman to whom she spoke was almost
hurt. "Why! Ask me a thing like that. Miss
Plaisted! Of course you're still new to this busi-
ness, but I can tell you that Mr. Witmer would
have understood that when my people make an
offer, the guarantee is taken for granted/'

"I have the responsibility now — at least until a
permanent purchasing agent is appointed. Your
price suits me: I will accept it, but only if it is
written into the order that the shipment is to be up
to sample."

"Have to gratify ladies, even if they seem a little

151

162 THE WHITE MOTH

fussy." The agent beamed brightly enough to cover
up his innuendo.

Outside^ he crooked his thumb toward the glass
door he had just left. ^^Is the lady permanent in
there?" he asked of Smythe, the head clerk.

'We hope so."

Smjrthe was a little sandy-moustached man, well
known in the Cato Sunday School. He was a man
who had found his perfect niche in the world, since
he liked details and hated to boss people. The Cato
Cutlery Works satisfied these preferences at twenty-
five dollars a week.

The salesman pulled straight the comical face he
had been about to make. "Where's Witmer?"

"Bridgeport."

"And the man below him?"

'^oss took him along. That left Miss Plaisted
next. She'd been half running the department for
a year, anyway."

"Well, I hope she holds out." The salesman was
slightly sinister. "They's a lot of firms ain't so con-
siderate of a lady as mine is."

Smythe turned conscientiously to the price list
he was checking. Presently he picked up a pile of
papers and went to the glass door.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Smythe. These look like
good bones, don't they?"

Hilda and Joe Duane of the assembly room had
their heads together. "They're all right, Miss

THE WHITE MOTH 153

Plaisted," Joe adjudged. "I wish you'd let me have
'em right now. We're short for handles this
minute."

"You'll have to get along with the old stock, Joe.
I must keep this sample for reference."

Hilda was making a label for the bag which she
slung into a cupboard. Smjrthe and Joe caught
each other's eyes, loyally expressionless. Witmer
would not have done that.

"I must say," commented Joe, "yoti're as good a
judge of bones as I am. But I think you're being
extra careful."

"Feminine fussiness, Joe."

Her smile was disarming. Besides, the men at
the Works were like Hilda's family: they would as
soon think of resenting her actions as those of a
little sister who had been with them through thick
and thin. Smythe placed the in-basket on her desk
and lingered for a moment's chat.

"Quotations on phosphor bronze are higher.
Looks like yoiu* first deal there was going to be a
good one."

"Oh, honestly, Mr. Smythe?" Hilda looked girl-
ish then and the Cato Sunday School superintendent
was as pleased as she.

"I'm going to tell the boss. It's a good thing for
him to know."

"That's the ticket. Tell him."

They looked up and saw xa \Jdl^ ^<^t ^'^ltt.'^^'«rs^%-

154 THE WHITE MOTH

With any other man Hilda and Smythe would have
been confused and babbled re-statements. But Mr.
Nearing was incapable of sarcasm. He stood beam-
ing down on Hilda with old eyes that contained
something a little baffled and far-away.

"I'm glad to see you here, Hildare. It's a great
day. I'm proud.'*

Smythe, beaming also, departed and closed the
door respectfully.

"Ten years, Hildare?"

"It wasn't long."

"No — it wa'n't long. And you worked. Ten
years!"

"Is Mrs. Nearing better?"

"Not to speak of, Hil. Ailing, it seems like."
He sat still for a while in the arm chair opposite
Hilda's desk, and she became aware of something
weighty in the silence. As she looked anxiously
toward him, her eyes met his: — two pairs of gray
eyes, one clear and purposeful, and one, mild, wist-
ful, and resigned.

'Tfou've always been like a — child of my own,
Hil. I wanted you should know first. About my
gouig."

*Tfour — going 1"

He seemed distressed by her passionate young
protest, but it was not in James Nearing to evade an
issue. He waited just a moment, turning the sea
bean watch charm which Hilda remembered from

THE WHITE MOTH 155

infancy and then stated the matter: '^Anson's
bought me out."

"What! How dare he!"

"It a'n't that, Hil. There a'n't anything you
should mind about."

"Oh, tell me!"

Those used to Hilda's controlled oflBce manner
should have seen her at that moment with tears
in her eyes as she laid her hand on Mr. Nearing's
knee.

'Well, Hil, you remember the plated ware?" He
watched her nod. "That was it."

"But that's over. We got out of the hole re-
markably well!" Hilda's "we" in relation to all
dealings at the Works was unconscious now. She
had been perfectly acquainted with every step in
the disastrous venture of the plated ware. She
knew of the high-priced man brought from another
city, who, after all, did not know his job. She
knew of the modem patterns, somewhat blindly
chosen and unpopular from the first, she knew of
the acid bath with the wrong proportions, the crack-
ing enamel.

"It was my mistake. So I paid for it."

Contemplatively she regarded him in the quiet
of the little oflGice where they were almost equals.
She asked:

'Why did you do it, Mr. Nearing?"

He looked away from her, sighing. "Seems like

156 THE WHITE MOTH

I'm not much of a person for big ventures,
But you see, we weren't doing anything so very
great. And I was getting old — "

He stuck there, and Hilda gasped. "Oh, Mr.
Nearing, you didn't think you had to!"

He was silent, looking wistfully beyond her. "She
always set store by my doing something big."

"You've done magnificently. You couldn't have
worked harder 1"

He seemed a little weary at that. "I don't sup-
pose I've made much of a life for Mrs. Nearing.
And for Guy."

"Guy," said Hilda, "doesn't understand."

He nodded. In all her life Hilda had never heard
Mr. Nearing speak a disparaging word about his
son. "I guess he don't, Hilda. I a'n't never told
Guy about the business. Guy," he continued, with
a certain detached meekness, "is like his mother."

"But Mr. Nearing, then you've sold out entirely!"

"That's it."

"You won't be here any more ! You're — going 1 "

Hilda's voice was shaking. Long restraint for-
bade her saying the words she meant : "Going from
a life work, a life love, a life ambition."

He twisted his hands about the sea bean watch
charm and said: ^Tes, Hil."

That night, after office hours, she walked down
Nearing Street. She did not go there often now.
It was some years ago^ two years, in fact, after Guy

THE WHITE MOTH 157

Nearing had left Gato for the last time^ that Mr.
Plaisted had begun to find the house inconvenient.
"I was thinking of some alterations, Hil," he had
suggested. "If you could help a little out of your
salary."

"I should rather move."

'Tou don't like Nearing Street?"

"No."

It was unusual for the serenely poised Hilda, but
since it was her salary which would make most of
the changes, question was not loud. The Plaisted
family moved from the little yellow-painted house
which always had strings of laundry in the back
yard to a white concrete one with green blinds on
a new street. The boys were away and Dorrie was
at home, enjoying her first parties. Life there was
very comfortable and gracious.

Now as she walked along, the October sunlight
made a yellow glow of the maples on Nearing
Street. The children scuflSied through the early
fallen leaves, the scent of bonfires made the dusk
pungent. From the porches where a young couple
sat rocking before supper or the girls hugged their
knees on the top step, waiting who might come by,
respectful comments passed.

"She must get those clothes from away. There
is an air."

"Now how old can Hilda Plaisted be? With that
complexion you wouldn't Bay — ?*

158 THE WHITE MOTH

The admiration was not unmerited. When she
was seventeen the perceptive had known that Hilda
would develop late. That leisurely blooming had
taken place, fostered physically by the sunshine
and tranquillity of Cato, fostered spiritually by the
nights and days that had made her acquainted with
the depth of love and its ability to pardon.

Mr. Nearing was mowing the front lawn, a task
performed by the older men in Cato only when
there were no sons.

"I'm glad youVe come, Hildare. She seems to
need cheering.'*

They walked slowly through the canna beds up
toward the house. It was an immaculate house,
as are those of elderly people who move about very
little. Up in the black waJnut-fumished bedroom
overlooking Nearing Street, the lamp with the pink-
flowered shade and the beaded fringe was already
lighted. Mrs. Nearing, in her crocheted shawl had
her regal air, as though being ill moved her one
step higher in the ranks of those bom to be served.

"I don't seem very well now, but I expect to be.
Now that Mr. Nearing's retired, you see, we might
go away." She smiled up wistfully: "We always
talked of it."

"Now, now, Mother, when you get a little
perkier."

"I had a nice letter from Guy, Hilda. That's
such an interesting place where he is."

THE WHITE MOTH 159

"He's still on the ranch?''

"Not much of the time. It didn't seem to be
just what he wanted. He's exploring; and writing,
too."

Hilda ventured no question. Mr. Nearing ampli-
fied. "I guess it a'n't come out in anything — any
magazines, you know."

"Not yet, James. But," said Mrs, Nearing
dreamily, "it's a very good thing for him to try.
I think Guy has it in him to do so well. Don't
you think so, Hilda?"

"Yes, Mrs. Nearing."

It was no untruth. Hilda had always been able
to believe a little of what Guy's mother believed.
Though his place was removed from her life and
though she could never communicate with him
again, she knew Guy. More than either of the
two who sat before her, one adoring, the other re-
signed, she had possessed his childhood. She knew
the determination obscured by perversity, the sensi-
tiveness which pride made reckless. Hilda had de-
cided, after Guy's third letter to her, that it would

«

take him long to grow up.

"It's natural," said Mrs. Nearing, "for him to
take to those artistic things. And I don't want him
to be worried. Let him look about as much as he
likes. There is time."

^Tes, Mother."

Mr. Nearing answered this eja \\fc ^w5A ^ ^^^«^-

160 THE WHITE MOTH

mand. Mrs. Neaiing folded her hands and gazed
away wistfully over the shadows of Nearing Street.
"Come again, Hilda. I seem to need company."
Hilda kissed Guy's mother, now the humble one
when they two were together, and walked home
through the peaceful quiet of Cato. She smelled
the keen scent of bimiing leaves and heard the last
shouts of children and her mind reverted inexorably
to the details of the coming shipment of bones.

"Can I help you any in this business about the
bones?"

Anson Boyce was at her desk again some time
later. It was not customary for Boyce to consult
with his department chiefs about details. There
had been a feeling of friendship between him and
Hilda lately, but such frequent consultations, to the
mind of the temporary purchasing agent, indicated
none too sure a trust in her judgment. And even
if he was her friend, she would prefer a rebuke less
roundabout.

"Do I seem to need help?"

One never quite got over one's awe of Boyce. He
was terrifyingly businesslike now and Hilda won-
dered how many possible new purchasing agents he
had interviewed since she saw him last.

"I understand that you have refused to pay the
bill although the treasurer wants to close the yearly
accounts. That is unusual."

THE WHITE MOTH 161

"And careless? Or fussy? And obstinate?" At
least she had found one might talk back to Boyce.

He started to make pencil checks and decided not
to. "I have no intention — of interfering — with a
person whom I have entrusted with a job. You
have not proved that you are mistaken in this
matter — yet."

The only answer to that would have been a long,
terrified whistle. Hilda said nothing until — "I'm
afraid I can't prove it yet. You see, I'm acting on
a hunch."

"I see," said Boyce. And nothing else at all. At
last: "We don't wait to see a consignment at the
end of the fiscal year. We pay outstanding bills
regularly, even when not prodded by the treasurer."

"Mr. Boyce," said Hilda, "it's awfully kmd of
you to spend time with me like this, but if I can't
run the purchasing department, won't you please
get someone else?"

And then they sat looking at each other. Hilda,
who had thought she understood perfectly what had
happened when James Nearing found he was not
fit for team work with Anson Boyce, added one more
shade of comprehension to that picture. Anson
Boyce was choosing words.

"The method is — not the sort I imderstand. I
have no intention of judging — except by results —
My decision — is still to be made. Meanwhile —
Miss Plaisted, will you macry iMiT^

162 THE WHITE MOTH

They looked at each other agam. And Hilda,
who had looked into Boyce's eyes only once before
when they were moved, was astonished. It is a
miracle, but one of every day, to look into the face
of someone distant, or even hostile, someone as im-
personal as the trees along the village street or the
steeple of the village church — and to find that face
suddenly like the face of a small child, with emo-
tions that anyone may read: affection, longing,
timidity. Like anyone we love. Like ourselves.

So Hilda saw Anson Boyce. Boyce was no longer
in the vigor she had known when she first came to
the Works. There was gray in his hair; his re-
served look had hardened. Breaking through it the
emotional Anson never expressed in youth was ner-
vous and halting.

"We're not so — wholly different. I have an idea
about respect in marriage. Equality. I respect
you — as well as love you.''

It was time for Hilda to answer and Hilda was
wordless. The tears had come to her eyes when he
said "love." Boyce saw them and a very soft ex-
pression came into his own face. But he did not
move toward her. With a shyness that was part of
the child she had seen in his eyes, he waited.

"I can't."

"Can't you, Hilda? Are you sure?"

At the words Hilda herself was not sure what the
background oi disillusion, of faith, of weariness

THE WHITE MOTH 163

stood for. She had never expected to know any
love but the one she had known.

"I think I am sure."

He weighed that, quietly. "Someone else?"

If the talkers on all the porches of Cato could
have known that even unto Hilda Plaisted, "at her
age," a most eligible man had said humbly, "Some
one else?" Hflda was silent a moment.

"No," she said.

"Then," said Boyce, still weighing, as intently as
he did the other problems they encountered to-
gether, "I will wait. I wish I could have let you
know before, not been — like this. I didn't know
how to make you know."

He smiled briefly as he stood up : a most depend-
able chief, one able to take the responsibility for
his own waiting and for Hilda's.

"I think we can work together just the same.
Will you?"

She put out her hand. "If I don't make good
as a purchasing agent you fire me?"

"I promise," said Anson Boyce, in the tone of a
man making his first promise to the woman he
loves.

And the next week the long-awaited consignment
of bones arrived and the salesman, even as had been
Hilda's intuition, had meant to take advantage of
her and had sent a lot in no respect up to sample,
not fit, as Joe Duane said, to ?,o m ^^x^as^^. '"'^^^^

164 THE WHITE MOTH

whole purchasing department, not to mention Mike
Moran and Joe Duane, had joy of the deed when
Hilda refused to take the consignment and brought
out the sample and the written order and her knowl-
edge of bones to confute the salesman. Even his
combination of bluster and compliments did not
avail him. The final act in the successful comedy
of the bones took place when they were finally re-
moved at the salesman's order and the agency of
their removal was a slaughter house.

"So that's all they were good for!" exulted Joe
Duane. "He couldn't sell them anywhere else.
And what does the boss say nowf

The boss said: "Is it all right now for me to re-
tain you as permanent purchasing agent?''

Hilda said : "I think it is,"

CHAPTER XI

Cato in April is a pleasant place. The red buds
on the maple trees are just bursting then, the sky
is of that very delicate robin's egg blue whose purity
is almost incandescent. Yards are cleaned up by
then, and spring house cleaning is in progress. On
the verandahs of wooden houses, painted a tidy
yeUow, or green, or gray, the parlor chau« stand in
luxurious publicity all day long, while tremendous
renovation takes place within. Housewives in
gingham dresses and large gloves attend to the
hyacinth beds m the front gardens; windows are
washed; cellars are cleaned and there is wholesale
purchase of oilcloth and white curtains.

"He looks awfully swell,'' said Gertie Fowler of
Nearing Street, as she perched, with her friend
Grace Barber, on the railing of the Fowlers' front
porch. It was the first day of the year when out-
door gossip had been possible.

"But aren't those clothes sort of queer to — go
in at the waist so much? They're the kind that go
with a tumed-up black moustache. Only he hasn't
got one. Why, say!" Grace sat up for a closer
view. "I believe that's Guy Nearing!"

1^

166 THE WHITE MOTH

Gertie was immediately galvanized into action.
"Do you think so? Won't he be surprised!"

The Nearings' house, aloof on its mound of lawn,
did not share the activities of the street. There
were no signs of housecleaning there, the green
blinds were down in the parlor, the front door was
closed. Front doors are never locked in Cato: Guy
turned the tarnished brass handle and walked in.
The old man would probably be at the shop, but
perhaps they had a nurse for his mother : Mr. Near-
ing's letter had said she was "pretty sick." He
would tiptoe upstairs and find out. But, as he
turned toward the long, straight staircase, with its
brown and pink flowered carpet, he heard a high,
tremulous voice from the sitting room: "Who's
there?"

*Why, father! You home?"

James Nearing, appearing from the open door of
the sitting room, looked gray and unsubstantial in
the dim light of the hall.

"I came as fast as I could. Dad. How is she?"

James Nearing stood leaning against the hatrack,
a slowness, an effect of impediment in all his mo-
tions. "Why, I supposed you'd know it, Guy. You
can see, can't you? She's dead."

(jruy fell back into the shadow, in the dimness the
old grandfather's clock ticked between them.

"Oh, Father — Father ! How long?"

"Ten days now."

THE WHITE MOTH 167

Long after that moment of shock, Guy realized
the difference he had heard then in his father's
voice. Those bald words! They were lacerating.
In them was none of the colorlessness, the precise
self-control of the old James Nearing, dun back-
ground for his brilliant wife and son. In the voice
there was an unfamiliar abandon.

The two did not move toward one another. Too
many years had they passed without a word, too
many days had they lived together in that house
without a gesture of intimacy. Each alone, pro-
tected by the dusky light of the hall, they took
their grief in silence.

"I'm — sorry you were alone here, Father."

James Nearing nodded his head slowly. "That's
all right — of course. She missed you, though.
Your mother always counted a lot on you, Guy."

Guy did not answer that, nor did James Nearing
look at him. Perhaps, if he had, he would have
been dazed to see his son smitten by the first grief
that had attacked him during his sunny, drifting
years. The silence became appalling.

"Your room's ready for you." It was the old
docile, conscientious tone, as though Guy's father
were thinking what Guy's mother would say next.

"But, Father! Can't I do anythmg?"

"We might," said James Nearing, unexpectedly,
"talk about that tonight, Guy. We'll be having
supper pretty soon."

168 THE WHITE MOTH

Guy turned slowly up the black-walnut staircase.

There was an odor about that staircase, cleanly
and staid. No odor in the world had ever seemed
real to Guy but that one. He had smelled it no-
where but in Cato, but the barest whiff of it in
chance, unhomelike dwellings always brought before
him, with the indestructible clearness of first mem-^
ories, the lyre-backed chair by the newel post, the
engraving of the Arch of Tiberius in its shiny black
frame, and Mrs. Neanng, at the head of the stairs,
welcoming her son.

"Father!" He turned with an impulsive move-
ment. He had been about to cry out that he could
not go up those stairs. But James Nearing, head
bent, eyes far-set and expressionless, had plodded
back to the living-room.

'Tou like coffee, Guy, don't you?"

They had sat through the supper of croquettes
and floating island, made as Mrs. Nearing had had
them made ever since she was married. The elder
Nearing had not once raised his eyes to Guy's rather
pitiful face. Now, about to push back his chair,
he glanced involuntarily at the place opposite him
where his wife used to sit. Coffee was Mrs. Near-
ing's idea of the way to convert a Cato supper into
a metropolitan dinner.

"It doesn't matter. I've had coffee enough in
Argentina to last me."

"Oh." James Nearing accepted the statement

THE WHITE MOTH 169

impassively. There was, to him, something savor-
ing of the ribald in pronouncing the letter i other-
wise than as in fine, but such acts on Guy's part
were beyond understanding and beyond criticism.
He led the way into the sitting room. "Will you
want to go out tonight?"

"Why, of course not."

"I didn't know," said Guy's father meekly, as he
settled into the carpet chair, creaking on its curved
support beside the table. The Rochester burner,
with its flowered shade, shone cheerfully over the
faded sitting room. There was electricity in Cato
by this time, and the new four-room bungalows at
the edge of town had it as a matter of course. But
James Nearing had scarcely kept track of the fact
and for Mrs. Nearing, anything which had not
existed in Binghamton, New York, at the time when
she left it, was not possible as good form.

The sitting room had an empty look. Helga was
old and tried; the green and brown carpet covered
chairs were all pushed properly into place; the lamp
was at the centre of the table; the four diagonal
piles of books were at the comers. Mrs. Nearhig
had not, been an untidy person, but where were the
things she used to leave about — a circular cro-
cheted shawl, a bit of knitting, an open letter?
There was no more in this sitting room than if it
had been a show room for furniture of the period of
the Chicago Fair.

170 THE WHITE MOTH

Guy walked from chair to chair, unable to take
his place in this picture. So many people had sat
in those green and brown chairs — his mother,
Hilda, his boyhood self. To catch the atmosphere
which had once made it natural for him to sit there,
was now a painful process.

"I wanted to tell you — a little bit — about the
shop."

He was roused and relieved at the prospect of one
of those business talks to which he used to close his
ears so many years ago. If his father could be com-
forted that way — !

"Is she going well?"

"I guess so," said James Nearing, painstakingly.
"I guess she's going real well. I a'n't there any
more, you know."

"No. I didn't know."

Guy's mind was scarcely able to grasp what
meaning such a statement had. For a moment he
actually gaped at Cato's industrial magnate. He
was wordless.

James Nearing had been watching his son's face
rather timidly. He went on, with the careful,
dogged air which had taken him so relentlessly
through all his failures and his crises.

"Anson and I disagreed. It was — just after you
left. I a'n't been very active in the company since.
Seems as though we needed a younger man — more
go."

THE WHITE MOTH 171

He did not look at his son as he retailed this
simple bit of information: his intonation did not
change. But in the moment's pause that followed,
Guy's mind made a lightning picture. He came
back, with a sickening sense of unbelief, to the
realization that ten years had passed and could not
be replaced.

"Anson took over the responsibility?'' he got out.

"Yes." Mr. Nearing nodded slowly. "That was
about the size of it. Anson had some of the stock.
And a while ago he — came to me and said he'd
have to have mine."

"Why, the old skunk!"

"You're not to speak like that, Guy. I think I'll
have to tell you." James Nearing very precisely
folded his hands. As he sat in the patent rocker he
looked rather shrunken and feeble, wistful, too. But
he went on intrepidly, facing the audience to him
the most strange and the most difficult in the world
— his son. It was James Nearing's way, to go on
when things were difficult.

"The business was going to the bad, Guy. I — I
had made mistakes. Seems as though I wasn't very
good at the buying and selling end. I want you
should know just how it is and not blame Anson.
Anson said it was going into the ground and it
wasn't fair he should be tied to a failing concern.
I — I guess that was true. And Anson was fair. He
said he'd get out if I liked, but I must either buy or

172 THE WHITE MOTH

sell. Well^ I — I'd been having expenses lately and
I couldn't buy/'

"Expenses?"

"You went to South America about that time, of
coiuise. But that wasn't all. I — ," James Nearing
looked up from his tight clasped hands, " — I told
you the firm had been having losses."

Guy looked at him.

**Whom do you think would make 'em good,
Guy?"

"Losses to your works? Why, they could afford
'em. It's all in the game."

Guy started back physically at his father's brief
look.

"When it was my mistake? No, they could not."
James Nearing said, as an afterthought : "That's so.
You wouldn't understand. Hil would. I told Hil
I didn't let the Works suffer."

The name pierced the sentence like a thread of
red-hot wire. Guy spared himself by not asking
further who was meant. In such a brief monosyl-
lable one might be mistaken.

"So you sold," he said.

His father nodded.

There was a frown between Guy's dark eyebrows.
He was only just grasping what this meant to the
Nearing fortunes. And it was varied emotions that
made his voice sharp. "At a high figure, I suppose?"

"Well — ," said James Nearing, rather appeal-

THE WHITE MOTH 173

ingly. And then, "No." One thought of a soldier
walking unswervingly to the cannon's mouth.

"How much?''

Guy did not mean to sound cruel. But, imcon-
sciously, his father's meekness had induced in him
the tone of an inquisitor. The elder Nearing's fea-
tures were still set in that look of beseeching
bravery.

"Twenty-five thousand."

"Why—!"

This time the blow to Guy was very real. Though
he had -never cared to measure the pleasant
reaches of his father's fortune, he had judged it by
his own standards. And fifty times the sum men-
tioned would have seemed to him only modest. In
a state of shock that left his face boyishly open to
the most boyish emotions, he tried to understand.

"Why — ! That's exactly what you came in
with!"

"Yes."

Even yet Guy Nearing was only partly aware of
what had happened to him. To one unused, since
he could think, to the thought of money as having
a limit, the stark facts refused to define themselves.
The furthest that he could see, for the moment, was
the pathetic picture of the old man before him.
As if it were a picturesque calamity of which he was
reading, he sensed the ordeal that this confession of
failure had been. And he pictured those years of

174 THE WHITE MOTH

conscientious and determined labor — all the years
from twenty-five to fifty-five, gone into the tread*
mill, and not one cent, not one scrap of honor to
show for it. He got himself together in some degree
and said gently :

"It isn't really so bad. That's enough to keep
you in plenty of comfort. Why, in South America
you could be rich on it."

His father regarded him with that impassive look,
as one whom he feared and bowed to without ap-
proving. Guy, like a stunned person trying to
scramble up, went on : "You want to be jolly careful
how you invest it. It's quite a respectable fortime,
that twenty-five thousand dollars."

Be it said to Guy's credit that his thoughts were
entirely on his father. He was considering the
twenty-five thousand solely as maintenance for
James Nearing.

But the last question had not been answered.
"What have you done with the money?" inquired
Guy, kindly.

"I have invested it," said James Nearing, in his
dogged, toneless voice, "in the Calcopyrite Smelting
Company. They haven't paid any dividend for
nine months."

It was at this moment that a silence of genuine
grimness fell between the two. Guy tried to rally,
relapsed, murmured brokenly: "It takes every-
thmg?"

THE WHITE MOTH 175

"And the house. I mortgaged it."

They waited for some time. James Nearing's
eyes were not on his son but on the black onyx
mantel. He moved his hands restlessly once or
twice and then he began to speak in a voice that
was almost expressionless but had, nevertheless, a
vivid, quivering thread of emotion running up and
down. Now it disappeared, now it throbbed
through the words, poignantly appealing.

"It was for your mother, Guy. I a'n't never been
the man she expected. Somehow I didn't seem to
have the stuff to go ahead and make the big plays
I ought to have made. It takes courage to be in
business nowadays. It takes a — a sort of dash. I
didn't have it. I could go on making good knives,
but I couldn't think of nothing new. I couldn't
keep up with the fellows that- are in the market
now. I tried. That's what the trouble was. I tried
for her sake to make a big play. It — " he looked
up at his son, almost childishly appealing — "it was
plated ware. I thought mebbe we'd get rich with
that — rich like she wanted to be. It didn't go. I
wa'n't the man to plan it and put it through. The
plate scaled and people didn't like the patterns —
I dunno. That's when the business got in a hole
and Anson had to take and pull it out. I'm grateful
to Anson. I wouldn't have liked the Cutlery Com-
pany to fail."

Mr. Nearing said this mt\i wi \iiKSgt^j^i!^^ ^^"^

176 THE WHITE MOTH

of protective affection, such as he had never felt
permitted to exhibit toward his son.

"But you see, it couldn-t go on with me in it."

"Father! Fm darned sorry!''

James Nearing looked up, surprised at the senti-
ment, offended at the word.

"I'm sorry for your mother," he said simply. "It
was for her I tried it."

It was Guy's turn. Out of the emotions that were
bewildermg hun, he managed the first remark he
had ever made to his father on an adult basis.

"I guess I'd better get a job."

"I was — hoping that."

The distrust on the older man's part was hardly
called for. Guy's voice was sharp.

"I'll beat it to Milwaukee tomorrow. That's
probably the thing to do."

His father nodded, apparently ready to accept any
proposal, but in a moment he said hesitantly :

"If you could see your way to stay in Cato,
Guy—"

"Could I be of any use to you?"

Guy was unusually moved tonight: he did not
stop to think that this was the first time he had
ever modified his plans for his father's benefit. For
James Nearing to ask such a thing was unusual too,
and yet, in this new mood of his, there was some-
thing more deeply himself than in the gentler one
before Mrs. Nearing's death.

THE WHITE MOTH 177

"I think I'd like you to, Guy. I a'n't been so.
well and there are things to do. You know the
twenty-five thousand may be all right but — I don't
know how to do in those things. There's a lawsuit
about that Caleopyrite Company. Another com-
pany claims their land. It'll be settled in six
months. If you could stay with me till then — "

He looked up, such an expression of appeal on his
face, that Guy was moved, beyond his realization.

'TTour mother — you see — it hasn't been very
long. I a'n't done very well by you, but if you
could — "

"Of course. Why, certainly I'll stay. Father/'

James Nearing rose, heavily and by stages, from
his chair. He leaned his hand on the table and
stood there for a minute.

"Your mother," he said, with eyes fixed on the
distance, "counted an awful lot on you, Guy."

CHAPTER XII

"You'll be dashing out of here pretty soon?"

Guy raised a dark eyebrow. "I shan't do much
dashing in here."

Otto Marks, a partner in the clothing store,
nodded humbly. "We are pretty quiet."

"What's doing. Otto? What are the jobs?"

"Jobs!"

Otto's good natured jaw, flecked by a few crumbs
of cocoanut, dropped open. He and the former heir
to the Works were sitting in Price's Lunch Room
and Guy, not quite at ease, was having some diffi-
culty in wresting Otto from his traditional state of
adoration to a more practical frame of mind.

"Lord! For you, Guy!" Otto was helpless.
"Why, there isn't much. Most of the fellows get
into something right from High School and work
along. And the main place, of course, is the
Works."

Guy's smile was a little wry. "No thank you —
under the circumstances."

"I know how you feel, of course," Otto hastened
to excuse himself. "After it's out of your father's
hands. And old Boyce is sort of a crab."

"It would be somewhat to smile," admitted Guy,

178

THE WHITE MOTH 179

not too smilingly. "But I don't suppose the Works
monopolize Cato?"

Otto seemed not so sure. He disposed of the
cocoanut cake in some difficulty. "All I know
about" — he was actually blushing — "is the clothing
store. We need a man there."

"I could sell ties, couldn't I?"

Guy's jokes, as Otto knew, were not necessarily
recognizable, but he felt hotly uncomfortable at the
smile he got with this one.

"Excuse me, Guy."

There was no answer. Guy, with the ease which
frightened Otto, had risen and reached for the lun-
cheon checks.

"Of course it's just to amuse yourself," Otto was
laboring painfully, "while you're with the old man?"

His companion, quite the most noticeable person
in the room, on whom all eyes had converged as soon
as he stood up, smiled vividly.

"Yes. For a howling joke, Ot. Only not quite so
funny as selling ties."

He strode through the tables, to be rejoined by
a very meek Otto at the door.

"I say, Guy! I understand, of course. You ought
to have something special." Then Otto brightened.
"Listen here, why don't we ask Hil Plaisted? She's
way up in the Works, you know, and she knows an
awful lot about what's doing."

Otto never quite understood what occurred after

180 THE WHITE MOTH

that. One moment he was in rather enviable con-
versation with a conspicuous visitor to Cato. The
next, moment Guy had turned on him a strange
looking face, had murmured something about an
engagement, and was gone. Otto, taking his tooth-
pick, was dazed and regretful. "But of course,'* he
soothed his misgivings, "Guy never was much like
us."

Outside Price's, Guy paused, at a loss for any
goal. It seemed to him that he had been to every
possible place in Cato, even to places ludicrously
impossible. He found nothing. Cato, so far as its
business life went, had a system. Automatically,
with the years, it shifted its crop of high school boys
into the compartment of obscure drudges, the ob-
scure drudges into rising young men, the rising
young men into prominent citizens. Always, there
had been one category above that of prominent
citizens, and in that were James Nearing and James
Nearing's heir. Cato knew that James Nearing had
retired from the Works, but not under what con-
ditions. It knew that James Nearing's heir had
never held down a job and never, apparently,
wanted to. Therefore Guy's overtures in the last
week had been received with respectful hilarity:

"You work! Oh, come, old man!" or "Oh, come,
my boy!"

Guy had at first found it easy to laugh with
them; any work in Cato was so easy and colorless

THE WHITE MOTH 181

compaxed with his own vivid flights. But finally he
understood that Cato meant business. It would pay
homage to the magnate's son^ but it would not en*
trust him with any of its money.

"But, my dear sir!" This was after the laughing
fitage was past. "I have to begin sometime!"

"But not at the top."

Guy had never imagined that such a statement
could sting him with humiliation. It had always
been in his mind that some day he would, of course,
start in to accomplish while all the world stood still
to admire. He had never consciously given up this
idea. But the start would be attended with dignity
and circumstance and be at the thing for which he
had found he had genius. To Guy, it had seemed
there was plenty of time. Yet while he thought
thus, he had drifted irretrievably beyond the point
where he could take the job possible for a boy of
seventeen.

Now, standing with his back against the window
of Gobel's furniture store, severed by only a pane
of glass from a rosewood parlor set including an
arm chair, a rocking chair and two straight-backs,
cushioned in green, Guy was attacked by a feeling
of loneliness such as he had never known in his
life. A little way down the street was the clothing
store, with Otto Marks' younger brother lounging
in pink shirt-sleeves at the open door: above it was
the little room where Jimmy MaUis^XL ^^txAscm^Sss^

182 THE WHITE MOTH

insurance with a start at the law: on the comer,
behind an immense sign, Eddie Reynolds sold
phonographs and sewing machines. Everyone in
Cato had made himself a place, places which Guy
had despised up to this moment, places which were
no part of his goal. But for him, the man who had
not started, there was no place at all.

*Well, you are a stranger!"

It was the Cato greeting. Guy's smile had an un-
usual warmth as he turned to see the lady who had
addressed him.

"I saw you," she continued, "two blocks o£f. They
don't dress like that in Cato. Nor stand as if
they'd never stooped over an oflSce desk. Nor have
a permanent tan that doesn't peel."

"Honest, are you, Elsie?"

"Come to lunch."

"I've had it, but couldn't I just walk with you?"
Guy's manner could always be appealing on occa-
sion, but the call this time was so genuine that the
lady under the mauve sunshade smiled warmly. As
they swung down Main Street, followed by the eyes
of all the noon crowd, he told her: "They don't in-
vite like that in Cato. Where've you been?"

"Oh — New York, Chicago. I left the tin manu-
facturer there. You might as well know — you
would anyway — I'm divorced."

"I might as well know — I would anyway — that
yoiu" eyes are more elfish than they ever were."

THE WHITE MOTH 183

"That sounds young, Guy. We're not — "

In his suddenly smitten silence, Elsie was uncom-
fortable. She touched his arm to say gently: "It's
nice to be back in Cato, don't you think?"

She was touched by his sober face. "Your
mother! Oh forgive me!"

"I didn't get here in time."

They walked on in greater intimacy, her hand
still on his arm. "But you're going to stay, Guy?"

"Yes, Elsie.'^

Her bungalow was a pleasant resting place, the
extra ornaments, the extra formalities of Cato ab-
sent. Guy watched his cigarette smoke comfortably
beside Elsie's long chair.

"Do you know, Elsie, I had forgotten about some
of the proprieties of Cato, I knew, of course, that
you mustn't smoke in the sitting room, or call on
ladies except on Wednesday night" — his eye caught
hers whimsically — "or on invitation. But I didn't
remember that you mustn't have ideas?"

Elsie laughed, leaning back against cream chintz
cushions. "And have you ideas?"

"Oh, come now!" He was surprismgly in earnest.
Elsie, amusedly watching his profiOie, decided that
there were resemblances to James Nearing, and told
him so. Guy went on, undiverted.

"I've organized a lot of things, off and on. The
students' club in Paris. And plans for the ranch.
And a European tour I pulled off "

184 THE WHITE MOTH

"Then what's the matter now?" She was still
regarding it as a joke.

"Oh — " he shifted his long legs uneasily — "capi-
tal. It happens I want some money right away.
And with those things, of course, I didn't fuss with
the expense details very much. Either somebody
else did it or there was money enough."

"And here they want you to fuss with details."

"Worse. They want me to have already fussed.
Fussed for years. Nothing else fits you for a job
in Cato."

Elsie watched her silk cfurtains blowing in the
April breeze. "Why do you want to join the toilers,
Guy?"

"Why?"

"Yes. Haven't we always had too many of them
in the world? I don't see why it should be every-
body's function to labor and produce things and be
profoundly dull. Bauerman did, and he was a little
worse than dull. He produced paper boxes. But
no one expects you to produce anything, Guy."

"Look here, lady. That's carrying it pretty far."

"Of course not. You don't belong to the grub-
bing clan. Why not accept your function and stop
such temperamental efforts at this late date? We
need you to show us the charm of life."

"Look here, Elsie, I'm not quite — "

"Cato doesn't understand," said Elsie. "But I do.
Cato sees everything in black and white. All work

THE WHITE MOTH 185

and righteousness or all play and deviltry. YouVe
rather tarred abeady, aren't you?"

"So I've found."

"Then accept it as a tribute." She looked up smil-
ing as he touched her hand. "There are some who
prefer you as you are, Guy."

"Elsie! Am I that bad?"

"Come and play with me sometimes, Guy. It's
a long time since I've heard tales about the utter-
most parts of the earth."

"But I've given them up, Els. I'm going to be
a working man."

She laughed softly. "Don't treat me like Cato,
Guy. You and I understand."

Guy walked up Maple Street humming. He was
unaware that two forces, set in motion long before
he was born, had been stealthily maneuvering that
day, for his future. One, perhaps, was a legacy from
his father and one from his mother. And his
mother, as usual, had won. From the porches and
the lawns, Cato's eyes followed him.

"That foreign air is queer, but he's good-looking."

"Guy Nearing doesn't get a day older."

At the comer he ran into a typical afternoon pro-
cession : a perambulator with a solemn five-year-old
walking beside it, followed by two women, one old
and one young, out for an airing before gettmg
supper.

"You are a stranger \"

186 THE WHITE MOTH

"Janey Hubbell! Can I have this baby for a
buttonhole bouquet? I like it ever so much but —
I think — after all you're prettier than it is."

"She, Guy. Sally's my third. The idea of my
being pretty!"

"It's an idea I always had. But of course you
helped it with molasses candy. Have you got any
more?"

"Guy, aren't you absurd!"

Janey walked on glowing. Mrs. Hubbell at her
side smiled too and wondered: "Will that Guy
Nearing never grow up?"

It was late afternoon now and the Cato workers
were pouring home. Every house door stood open
and in the kitchens, women m pmk and blue aprons
were humming over their shining stoves. Guy,
sauntering, relaxed in the late sunshine, turned an-
other comer and saw, down the street, under the
arching row of maple trees, a tall, blue-clad figure,
walking swingingly.

Janey and her mother would not have thought
him boyish if they could have seen Guy's face as he
stood in the shadow of an alley watching Hilda. It
may be boyish to be angry when one would like to
be sorry, but the effect of such anger, carried over
many years, is bitter. As Guy whirled down the
alley and into the evening quiet of an empty street,
his look would have caused Cato no envy. Hilda
bad taken the one way to make Guy remember her.

THE WHITE MOTH 187

He turned into Nearing Street and approached
the big brown house, not unimpressed. It was, after
all, more spacious than any place which he had
visited that day. There was about it an air of
honorable eminence, admitted achievement. Guy,
in the old days^ had chafed at this, but now, with
the idea of achievement before him, he felt a sort
of gratitude toward the chocolate-colored mansion.
After all, a man issuing from its doors could never
feel himself of no account. There was a dignity in-
alienable from its inhabitants, setting them above
other men.

Inside, it was silent. This was the hour of late
afternoon when Cato houses stood garnished and
expectant to greet the home-coming men. This
was when Mrs. Nearing, in her striped muslin, used
to stand at the top of the porch steps, ready with
her one sedate kiss and her question "How was it
at the Works today?" Now the square hall loomed
cavernously, and from the sitting room there was
not a sound. Guy, with a distaste for meeting his
father's questioning eyes, turned up the dark, wal-
nut stairs.

His room was at the back of the house, looking
out over the syringa bushes and the yard where the
laundry used to dry. Ever since anyone in the
Nearing family could remember, there had been a
mandate that no one was to interfere with Guy'a
room, so even now Helga, Vha ^t^^sA* ^^ifw^ ^^^^

188 THE WHITE MOTH

always known him, had stacked some broken
lengths of fishing rod, a rusty mandolin and a
spnmg tennis racket, in the comer where they
always used to stand in High School days. A row
of black-bound school books still filled the book
case ; the High School banner hung on the wall.

Guy stood a moment in the door, looking at the
square, high-ceiled room, filled with late sunshine.
He had scarcely noticed it since his return, but in
this still hour of the late afternoon, when every
house is most at leisure and most itself, he was
struck with the spaciousness and kindliness of this
place which had always been waiting for him.
There was a row of photographs on the book case,
faded but carefully dusted. He picked up the big
one in the center. It was the High School class,
front row seated, rear row standing. The president
sat in the middle of the front row and at his side
the secretary, with wide forehead and direct, un-
smiling eyes, held a leather-bound book of minutes
in her lap. With a violent motion Guy snatched
that picture away to bury it at the bottom of a
box.

Outside the street echoed with welcoming voices
and the feet of home-coming men. The sparrows
chirped on the lawn, the budding branches of the
syringa hedge showed yellow against the grass.
Guy walked to the window and leaned there, a ciga-
rette forgotten in his hand. From this window,

THE WHITE MOTH 189

when he was ten, there stretched a cableway of
stiing, whereon a small basket made laborious trips
several times a day, with messages for Hilda which
could just as well have been called out of the win-
dow. The railway was Guy's idea, but it was Hilda
who had painstakingly constructed it, after several
trials made by him with the wrong kind of string.
But it was Guy who had first tired of it, and turned
to Indian playing m the woods. He stooped down
now and opened the window. On the shutter there
was still a frayed and grimy bit of string.

Suddenly a half -smoked cigarette described a vio-
lent arc into the spring twilight. On Guy's face was
an expression of defiant bravado which must have
been there often in the last few years, so deeply was
it set.

"Thank God theyVe moved away!" was what he
said. '7 couldrCt have stayed in Cato/^

The gas was lighted when he joined his father in
the black-walnut dining room. Mr. Nearing had
looked up, when his son came in, with an eagerness
lighting his pale blue eyes, then had looked down
in silence. Guy, to cover the embarrassment of the
question which was not asked, volunteered:

"It seems that Cato is just exactly full. There
isn't room for one more person in it."

"Do you mean," asked James Nearing precisely,
"that a starving man couldn't get a living in Cato?"

Guy raised a quizzical eye-bio^ • TK^X^^Kt^^a^ssss.

190 THE WHITE MOTH

of his father was standing out in astonishing reUef
since his mother's death.

"Oh, no. There's a grocer's boy needed at Robin-
son's and a handy man at the livery. Think I'd be
good at those?"

"I don't know."

Guy glanced up sharply, but his father, head
bowed over the cold lamb, said nothing further. He
pushed his own plate away in some irritation.
"Why, I have ideas enough. I can see right now
two or three things that could be started in Cato.
It takes capital, though." He was frowning in real
perplexity.

"There isn't any capital. You understand that."
James Nearing seemed to be forcing himself pain-
fully to reiterate this confession.

"I understand."

Guy ran his hand through his black hair. The
Cato dining room, with the walnut furniture and
the hanging lamp whose streaked green shade dan-
gled a beaded fringe, was beginning to look threat-
eningly like a prison to him. "I say. Dad!" His
glance was really appealing. "Why don't I go off
somewhere else — Milwaukee or Chicago? One'd
be much more likely to get something there. I could
send you money. It wouldn't be so far."

James Nearing did not answer. The look of far-
seeing resignation on his face smote Guy terribly.

"AD right," he contradicted himself. "I won't."

THE WHITE MOTH 191

There seemed to be something which the older
man wished to say. He looked up at his son once
or twice, then succumbed to inarticulateness.

Guy found nothing to say. He was finding these
evenings with his father more and more diflScult.
So far as he could remember, he had never had any
conversation with his father. They had conmiuni-
cated through Mrs. Nearing, made their jokes to
her and voiced their disagreements. Their last talk
on a subject vital to them both had been when Guy
was eleven. At that time his father had maintained
that he should be thrashed for some piece of care-
less mischief. Mrs. Nearing had felt outraged and
her weU-bred voice had trembled. She had had her
way, but since then Guy could not remember hear-
ing his father's opinion about anything.

"Two lines in the paper today about Calcopyrite,"
said Guy.

"I seen them."

"Apparently it's a matter of proving their right
to the claim. I suppose you looked it up?"

"No. I didn't."

"Didn't look it up before you invested?" Guy
did not dissemble the shock in his voice: the pre-
caution seemed to him, at this safe distance, such
a natural one to have taken. But James Nearing
remained expressionless.

'T, looked up about the ore being good. Seemed
as though that would be \h^ 01^7 \!&L\£i%!^

192 THE WHITE MOTH

"Oh, I suppose it will be all right, Father." Guy
felt called on to assume a protecting attitude, the
older man looked so withered and stooped, with his
trembling hand outstretched toward the custard
saucer.

"Maybe," said Mr. Nearing.

They finished supper in silence, Mr. Nearing care-
fully turned down the light under the fringed shade
and they crossed to the sitting room.

"Guy — where did ye try for work?"

Mr. Nearing, in the patent rocker, his feet in the
green and red carpet slippers on the footstool before
him, sat holding the damply folded Evening Citizen
in his hands. Even yet Guy had not grown used to
hearing his father call him by his name: there
seemed something artificial about it. He looked up
from his search for matches on the mantel piece.
"Everywhere, I should say."

Mr. Nearing disapproved of smoking. He watched
his son without speaking and Guy remembered.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Father."

"What did they say?"

"When I asked for work?" Guy shrugged impa-
tiently. "What I deserved, I suppose. They said
I didn't have any experience and they had no use
for ideas without details to them."

"Ideas?"

Guy's foot was violently kicking the fender be-
Iilnd bim. His father's eye followed it. It was the

THE WHITE MOTH 193

elaborate brass fender which had come from Chi-
cago when the Nearmgs first set up housekeeping,
and had held an unaccountable place in Mr. Near-
ing's esteem ever since. Guy used to be ordered not
to fool with it. It was many years, now, since orders
had been given to him in that house, but sins
against the fender found somehow a direct route to
his conscience. Hastily he removed his foot to drum
with it on the floor.

'Tes, I suggested two or three things. Nobody
wanted ^em."

''What are ye going to do?"

"I don't know. Father." Guy's hurt, defiant tone
was covered by a laugh. He had hardly expected
the loss of self-esteem that Cato had caused. "I
don't seem very well equipped for work. Too much
education."

"Do ye mean ye can't get a job?"

Guy had been used to consider his father a person
without feelings and without imagination; he would
have smiled with contempt at the idea that the
man ever indulged in passion. But since Mrs.
Nearing's death, it waB as though a brilliant screen
had been removed from before this quiet, homely
man. That tone had been arresting.

"I'm telling you," shot out Guy, "I haven^t found
any."

Mr. Nearing sat quite still, his wrinkled hands
clasped on the paper, and B^idj^st^^ \»& ^otl'^^x^^^

194 THE WHITE MOTH

how old he looked. There was a moisture around
his eyes, either from weakness or from the easy tears
of age. This man was a failure. He had promised
great opportimities to his son and had never sent
out a word of warning. And now, reduced to help-
lessness by the machine he had himself started and
could not control, he sat there doggedly making
some silent request that another man should sacri-
fice all his own personality and f oUow in those same
footsteps.

Guy would have liked to explain. In this, the
first vital conversation that they two had ever had
together since they were both men, he would have
liked to give his father some conception of the ideal
of beauty and space which had instigated his wan-
derings and made the cramped routine of the fac-
tory abhorrent. Impossible. They were two
different people, with barely a glimmer of compre-
hension, one for the other. There was only one
thing that James Nearing would understand — sur-
render. He sat waiting for it, dogged, helpless, with
the lamp shining on his bent, beaten head.

"What do you want me to do, father?"

"The Works?" The answer was so ready that it
seemed as though James Nearing's silence must
have been thinking it for days.

"But—! The Works!"

"Hil made good there."

Guy turned away. Around him the 0*een sitting

THE WHITE MOTH 195

room with the carpet-covered chairs seemed to lower
with appalling significance. It was in this room
that his father, his mother and he had discussed his
future a long time ago. That time he had been able
to escape. To what purpose? His sense of rebellion
was deep. He resented the whole elaborate system
which had promised him unlimited opportunity and
then withdrawn it ; kept him in ignorance and tlien
caught him unprepared in this trap. It would be
better for sons to be brought up m the beginning
to face a hard pull than to awaken to it late, like
this. Guy pushed a green chair violently out of
his way.

"Oh, very weU, Father. You have the right to
say. I understand it's only for the six months until
we hear about the Calcopyrite. And meantime, if
I have to go into the Works — X have to."

"I'm glad, Guy. I always thought — ^"

"It'll be a surprise to Anson."

"Anson'll do right by ye. I'll telephone him. Of
course, ye'll have to work up."

"Oh, Lord, Father!" Guy did not venture the
laugh he had intended. The old man's fixed look
was almost sacramental ; his eyes seemed set on the
vision of the Works as he had once seen them, with
his son at the center. Uneasily Guy tried to throw
off his own apprehension :

"We'll give it a try, anyway."

The Works, next day, \oo\l^ ^ dS^ase^^^B^ft^ ^ss^S^

196 THE WHITE MOTH

gloomy place. In spite of their growth there was
an old-fashioned unimposing air about the tumbled
brick buildings and the corrugated iron sheds
huddled inconsequentially in the muddy yard; with
the freight spur back of it. Guy had occasionally
made suggestions to his father, out of his flashes of
perception and scraps of foreign experience:

"I'd arrange my new buildings like this," or "Why
not try out that new idea?''

"Our business," James Nearing had always said
for his only answer, "is making good knives."

Guy had shrugged, and his secret thought had
been ^'When / have the factory -r-!"

Now his father had telephoned with pathetic
eagerness to Anson Boyce, and Boyce h^^d shown
himself politely ready to find some sort of occupa-
tion for James Nearing's son.

"No experience?"

"Sorry."

"No acquaintance with our products?"

"I plead guilty, Mr. Boyce."

Guy's appealing grin went unanswered while the
manager made checks on a piece of paper. In a
growing discomfort, Guy watched the other man's
pursed lips and impersonal frown. He had not been
inside the factory office since he was a schoolboy.
Then he had used to dash in, saluted by all the
underlings with comradely respect, himself saluting
the manager in much the same "ovay. Boyce had,

THE WHITE MOTH 197

in Guy's eyes^ held something the position of a
steward to the heir apparent. Mr. Nearing had in-
sisted on some measure of respect from his youthful
son to the Manager, ten years his senior: Boyce
had called Guy by his first name. What Boyce's
attitude had been, Guy had never speculated.

"I intend to do all I can for you, Mr. Nearing."

It was a tone a former stock ^1 might have
recognized. Guy felt cold. V

"Fm sure that's — generous."

The other cast him a direct look from his hazel
eyes. Compared with the calm glance of Boyce,
who had known Guy from childhood, the scrutiny
of sceptical Cato merchants was as nothing. Guy
began to be angry.

"The question to be settled first, Mr. Nearing, I
think is this: do you intend to make a permanent
thing of this?"

"ReaUy, Mr. Boyce— !"

Boyce, making his checks, did not glance up
again. "Our reaUy good positions — of course — re-
quire experience."

The sound from Guy was almost a snort.

"If you merely want to pass the time — you can
get a living here. If you want something better —
there is a career. But we should have to help you
work up."

Boyce glanced up now and his look was direct
and honest. He meant iu^t ^ \v^ \vd^ ^is^^«

198 THE WHITE MOTH

But the weighty finality of the thing seemed to
smother Guy. Anson Boyce, his father's clerk, sit-
ting at the chiefs desk where Guy should have been
and offering, with friendly patronage, a lifetime of
supervised toil to the man who stood as an appli-
cant before him !

"No favors here, eh!" Guy could not help it.
Boyce turned to his checks.

Very nearly Guy flung out of the room. But
there was, as Elsie had surprisingly glimpsed, some
stratum of James Nearing's obstinacy in him. He
stopped, with a good deal of his debonair gallantry
gone, and snapped out: "I came here for work,
Mr. Boyce. What have you got?"

Boyce's face, always a little wooden to Guy's
mind, betrayed no change of expression. "I shall
need a man who is acquainted with our raw ma-
terials. The place which is open now would not be
your permanent one. I will shift you through the
departments as fast as possible. For the present,
however, if you will go over to the purchasmg de-
partment — "

"The purchasing department!"

Boyce looked somewhat curiously at his visitor
evidently ready with objections so soon. Guy's
face was white and Boyce's expressipn, seeing it,
hardened. He did not elucidate further, waiting to
see if the new applicant for work had decided to
withdraw his intention.

THE WHITE MOTH 199

''Who is the head of the purchasing department?"
"I have purposely not mentioned the name
earlier. When a woman has attained the rank of
department chief here, I do not wish to induce
prejudice by calling attention to her sex before it
is necessary. If you want the position I spoke of,
you may apply to Miss Plaisted."

C3HAPTER Xin

The sun was blazing into Hilda's little office that
spring morning, shining on the brass handles of the
filing cases and the bronze hair of Miss Kelly bend-
ing over one of them. Hilda loved this grimy place
where the brass handles were almost the only things
to shine. Its large window looked out on the yards
.where the piles of lumber lay and where the dra,ys
rattled back and forth to the stock room with their
loads of bales and kegs^ Over in the gap between
the two new warehouses of corrugated iron, she
could see a bit of the sunny street of Cato, with a
few dogs and children rolling in the morning dust.
Mike Moran of the forge shop stamped shouting
across the yard to the stock room, inquiring at the
top of his lungs where the blankety that blankety-
blank lot of new dies had got to. George Bright,
the assistant stock clerk, with a pencil over his ear,
stood at the door of the stock room in spirited
altercation with the truck driver who had left a
keg of ten-penny nails on the station platform in-
stead of at George's feet.

The groimd-glass door of Hilda's small parti-
tioned sanctum was open and she could see the two

aoo

THE WHITE MOTH 201

rows of desks with their bent heads, backs turned
toward her. Smythe was ferreting swiftly in the
Siing cases and calling sharp questions to Miss Love
as to the whereabouts of a quotation card; little-
john plugged industriously through a set of in-
voices; Miss Mahoney clacked her typewriter in the
farther comer. It was a very large and impressive
department compared to the one Hilda had first
entered, and its efficiency was largely due to the
quiet young woman in the blue-gray suit, who sat
rapidly initialing bills and sorting them into the
out-basket. She hardly looked up at the knock on
the door: people did not take knocks seriously at
the Cutlery Works.

''Come in/' said Miss Kelly, and left with a pile
of papers for the manager's office.

She had nothing to say when he first stood before
her. She had to stay breathless, for just a moment,
to see if the line of his head was as she remembered
it, if the shoulder where her head had once been,
was the same. She had no cowage to look into his
face immediately. It was enough, while she tried
to quiet her heart beats, to realise that it was Guy
standing near her, nearer than she had thought he
would ever stand again.

"Guy! You've come to see me I''

She had risen from her desk, both hands out-
stretched. Hilda had known, from the Im^ssl ^&:ls^
Guy came to Cato, and die Yl^A. VcrgR^ ^^^r^

202 THE WHITE MOTH

not know what she awaited when he should seek
her out. Surely not love — that thought had been
put away long ago. But, at least, that the soreness
might be taken away, that something would be said
between them to blot out a scarring memory.

Hilda was not unwise after these years. Perhaps,
with any one but Guy, she would have been ready
for the sort of bitter conscience that makes mere
casual friendliness impossible. She would have
known that a man who steels himself against some-
one he has hurt, is not unaware that he has done
a hurt. But, in Guy's presence, the years fell from
Hilda and left her a little girl. She had to fight
agamst tears when he jerked out:
"Mr. Boyce sent me. About a job."
Hilda had turned away. She could not pity Guy
just then, but she might have. It had not occurred
to her that Guy would not have cared to work under
her, even in high school days. She had never clung
to pride as her whole support. She had never
plunged recklessly into a task against which every
sense rebelled, to find it topped by an unjustifiable,
unendurable one. It was really to Guy's credit that
he had not turned and bolted in the hall, as he stood
looking at her closed door. She thought he was
unaware of what stood between them: he was not.
But to his distorted vision, the very act of coming
to ask for work had put him so far beneath her that
sDjr personal words would be presumptuous.

THE WHITE MOTH 203

"Oh," said Hilda. She caught her breath. 'Tes.
Mr. Boyce spoke of our havuig an extra man. We
need a price checker.''

He waited silently, with set teeth.

*Tou haven't — any experience — at ofl5ce
work?"

"No, Miss Plaisted."

Hilda was trying painfully to gather herself to-
gether. It was her business to settle this new cog
among the parts of her machine but her mind re-
fused to place her one unreal, golden memory, in
the live routine of her office. One sacred part of
her had remained almost untouched since childhood.
That part saw Guy Nearing as a radiant being far
above such plodders as even the head of the pur-
chasing department. Guy Nearing as a clerk she
could not realize.

"You think experience necessary?" His self-con-
trol was going.

"Oh, no. No. You'll learn, of course. The work
is easy. I'm sorry we have no better position just
at present."

Hilda had meant that from the depths of her
heart: she was puzzled at the ironic smile that
crossed his face.

"I see."

"It is not well paid, but it is very responsible
work. There are a good many things I might be
able to turn over."

204 THE WHITE MOTH

The appeal, as humble as any Hilda had ever
made in the far away days when Guy was a glorious
chief and she his lowly follower, passed by unrecog-
nized. His face was so set that it hurt her.

*Tm sure we — ^ shall be glad to have you here.
Can you go to work immediately?'' She had
avoided speaking his name.

'Tes, Miss Plaisted.''

As she turned to press the buzzer for Smythe,
Hilda felt a lump in her throat that almost choked
her. Guy started at the sound of the buzzer. She
had forgotten how alien all these office customs
must seem to him. Perhaps he disliked it or thought
there was something menial in being summoned
that way. Was she to be haunted by fears of that
sort through all the acts of her office life hereafter?
Hilda's heart was heavy and so was that of the man
who stood before her. Undoubtedly they both
wished, for the interview just past, any possible
words but those which had been said. Undoubtedly
they were aghast at the barriers they had set them*
selves. But Hilda, with eyes almost conquered by
tears, tinned back to her desk. Guy strolled across
the room. So, in silence, they waited for Smythe.

''I am taking on a new man, Mr. Smythe.''
Hilda's voice, by the magic of habit, had recovered
its pleasant, businesslike quality. ''This is — Mr.
Nearing. Will you give him a desk and eiqplain
shout the work?"

THE WHITE MOTH 205

The office manager looked up with ready interest
at the mention of the name, but decided that ref-
erences to the former owner of the Works were out
of order. His eyes were a little puzzled, but he
said heartily:

''Glad to meet you, Nearing. Ck)me right this
way."

Hilda watched them as they passed through the
door into the outer office. Though her heart had
received a blow that told it to shut and turn away,
her eyes would not be sated with looking at Guy.
Hilda had remembered, whether she would or no,
the color of the hair that used to brush her cheek,
the shape of the shoulder against which hers had
lain. For many years she had looked for these
things and, of all the men who had passed before
her eyes, none had seemed to have them. His back
was turned, and for a moment which must be her
only greeting, she could look at the man who had
once been hers.

The two men were bending over a desk now and
Smythe was slapping a folder of papers on it. She
could see Guy's profile and she grew cold at the
realization that he had jerked his head in a way ^
she had forgotten. He smiled fleetingly at Smythe
and Hilda could have cried out that he would give
that familiar smile to her.

''Gave him a bimdle of back bills to cheeky" f^S^
Smjrthe^ returning.

206 THE WHITE MOTH

"Did he seem — to like the work?"

This was ^ probably the oddest question that
Smythe had ever heard a department head ask.
And Hilda noticed that he evaded it.

"Ain't he the son of our Mr. Neaiing?" inquired
Smythe, "That used to run the factory."

*Tes."

"Too bad this boy wasn't brought up to work,"
mused Smythe, "though I remember he was bright
as a button in Sunday School."

Hilda had heard that too.

**You will help him, won't you? All you can?"

"Sure," agreed Smythe. And if he had his private
opinion of the new arrival, he did not feel called on
to mention it.

"Something queer there. I hear there ain't much
money."

That day and the weeks that followed it, made,
to Hilda, all the other colorful moments of her life
look pale. She had never supposed that, as long
as she lived, she would spend her days in the same
room with Guy. It was not quite the same room.
The creaking length of the purchasing department
was divided from the purchasing agent's little office
by a groimd-glass door. Sitting behind this door,
generally open, Hilda could look down the length
of the outer room with its six desks, two abreast.
The backs at the desks were turned to her and the
second on the right was Guy's.

THE WHITE MOTH 207

He had sat like that in school, and she behind
him. She had learned as she would never know
anything else in the world, the point made by the
black hair at the back of his neck, the little tricks
with pencil and eraser. When on the second day of
his presence she saw him turn round, rumpling his
hair with his elbow after an absurd old habit, she
could have dashed from her place in the private
office to take her rightful position behind him and
answer his question. But it was the filing derk to
whom he had spoken and who answered.

"Yeh. We write it in this column. It does get
sort of tejious."

Probably it had never really occurred to Hilda
that work in her office could be tedious. To her
work was not pleasant or unpleasant, but necessary
or unnecessary. And more particularly it had never
struck her that the position of subordinate was dis-
creditable. It may be a feminine prerogative to be
an underling without loss of caste. But she under-
stood, not because she knew the work but because
she knew Guy, how he regarded it. She tasted one
result, in those'days, of her years of labor. She had
the right to give Guy orders and because of that he
found the sight of her unbearable.

Hilda was helpless. She would have been un-
feignedly thankful to leave her swivel chair and her
private office and offer them to Guy. Just thea
they meant nothing to het. T\i^^ ^xyt^^'?^^^ ^^s^

208 THE WHITE MOTH

by years of work, and work which had been her only
refuge, became an inescapable regret. Hilda would
have been glad to wipe out her years of accomplish-
ment and be, even at twenty-seven, a stock girl.

She passed his desk, sometimes, leaving her office
and going down the long room. He was never look-
ing at her but after she had passed she knew that,
without a change of position, his eyes could follow
her. With what expression? In the mornings, she
made it a point to stop and exchange greetings,
though she did not know whether this made him
feel less her subordinate or more. He always rose,
making littlejohn and Smythe uncomfortable with
memory of their own lapses.

"Good morning, Mr. Nearing; is the work all
right?"

"Yes, Miss Plaisted."

Smythe had something to say about the church
social and Littlejohn blushingly answered questions
about his sister's baby. Guy only waited in strained
rigidity until she passed.

"Is Mr. Nearing getting on all right?"

She resorted to Sm5rthe who stood chattering by
her desk, the out-basket imder his arm. It was one
of Smythe's understood duties to keep her confiden-
tially informed as to the merits of the working force.
Hilda, however, had waited in vain for any word
of commendation about Guy. The kindly Smythe
was a little slow about answering.

THE WHITE MOTH 209

"Why — as well as could be expected, I s'pose."

"He is — " Hilda forced herself reluctantly to ex-
plain and do it in an ordinary tone — "he is not
accustomed to this kind of work."

"I should say not!" Smythe snorted. "Looks like
he don't know a row of prices from a calendar.
And," he added under his breath, "cares less."

She understood how little Guy would care for rows
of figures. There had been, certainly, no special
consideration on Anson Boyce's part in offering a
man of his sort the routine duties of a clerk. But
Boyce was not accustomed to considering the dif-
ferences in men. There was about the manager an
imyielding quality, bom of his steady will power,
which made him consider all success equally diflS-
cult and all men under equal obligations. That,
too, was Hilda's creed. Yet she felt a sense of out-
rage that it should be applied to Guy, Guy was
beyond rules.

"Suppose you ask him to come here for a mo-
ment. I may be able to explam some things."

She would have been so glad to explain, if they
could have sat side by side as they used to in the
Nearings' sitting room, when Guy was too impatient
to work out the algebra problems and Hilda did
the plodding for both! But she realized, as soon
as she saw him, that those days were over forever.
Guy stood beside her desk, so near that she couldL
have touched his hand mtTa.Yifit^^ ^xA^^^jl^^Skss^s^-

210 THE WHITE MOTH

"I wonder if I could help you/' Having glanced
up, she lowered her eyes quickly without speaking
his name. "We've worked out a rather simple sys-
tem of filing the prices on quotation cards as they
came in."

"I see."

*lt looks tiresome but it gives one a pretty good
idea of the changing market."

"I see."

"If you will compare the prices on the bills and
keep the quotations up to date — "

'Tes."

She was not sure whether he had heard, he was
looking past her so doggedly.

"If I can help you at any time — "

"Thank you."

He waited a minute, still not looking in her di-
rection. Hilda found no more to say.

Hilda made no more overtures, they hurt too
much. She was reduced to watching through the
door his commgs and goings. And despite her
knowledge that he wished her away, she found her-
self thrilling to this nearness with the old feeling,
both maidenly and maternal. There was joy in it
as well as pain and she caught herself wishing that
Guy, for his own happiness, might know the feeling,
too, so heartwarming it was.

It was nothing heartwarming that he felt. She
understood too well the indications of his sudden

THE WHITE MOTH 211

bursts of speed, the disgusted weary intervals, the
cynical jests which electrified Miss Mahoney across
the aisle. Miss Mahoney, Miss Love and even
Littlejohn, Hilda noticed, hung on his words. It
was always so with Guy. People gathered about
him the moment he gave them a chance. If he
chose to lead a cause the most desperate or the
most fantastic it would never lack supporters.

But he seemed to choose deliberately to be de-
structive.

"Do you find the Works queer after abroad, Mr.
Nearing?''

Hilda, ready to go out to lunch, had paused be-
cause Guy and the two stenographers were stand-
ing just outside the glass door.

"I don't find them exactly up to date."

Hilda knew that Guy smiled as he said this and
that the two girls were not exactly at home with
the smile.

"What'd you do if you were the boss? Have new
hardwood floors in all the departments?"

Miss Love's flight of imagination was so immense
that Guy must have been amused. Hilda was sur-
prised to hear him say :

"Oh, I'd get in an efficiency expert to bring the
offices up to date. And have tabulating and sales
figuring machines. And I'd reorganize the shops
with modem machinery and higher wages and ^et va.
boys from the country ins,\fc^ ol \Mi^s^^^ Nsxsssiir'

212 THE WHITE MOTH

grants. And I'd tear down the whole place and
build it up scientifically. And I think I'd have a
regular system of shop representation — workmen
and clerks send delegates to discuss things with the
management."

"Gee, rd like that!"

The two girls had fallen back bedazzled, espe-
cially at the easy use of the first person singular.
Smythe, having tidied his desk for the noon hour,
paused beside the group.

"Maybe you'd rather blow the factory up and be
done with it, Mr. Nearing."

"I'd be frightened," said Miss Mahoney.

Guy cast her a brief, vivid smile. "Don't be
alarmed. It isn't my factory."

Hilda opened her door and the girls, embarrassed,
scattered. "I was interested in what you said about
shop representation," she got out quickly before he
could turn away. "Do you know whether it's been
tried anywhere and what the arrangements would
be? It might be worth considering. I confess I
hadn't thought of it before."

He looked her straight in the eye. "Neither had
I. It was a flight of imagination."

She considered that flight a little in some of the
following days, when her thoughts so often centred
about Guy. Often, in the old days, he had had
flashes of inspiration on a subject blank to her. But
the idea had no connection with her pleasantly

THE WHITE MOTH 213

working office. Deprived of his point of view, she
could not envisage it further. If Guy only cared
enough about his own ideas to see them through !

"Mr. Nearing says the funniest things," Miss
Kelly confided to her during dictation the next
morning. She was accustomed to chat with Hilda.
They all were. An atmosphere of informality still
irradiated the Works. "He says if people work at
a job that isn't interesting they ought to be paid
more than the boss, because the boss is having fun.
Do you suppose he really means it?"

Hilda, to whom Guy's description of a boss hardly
applied at that moment, sighed.

"I suppose the whole system of work and pay is
complicated."

"Well, / said," Miss Kelly was registering in the
company's good books: "I said 'I suppose we can
all work up if we're worth it.' And he said, 'At
my age?' Say, he's not so awful old, is he, Miss
Plaisted?" -

Hilda repressed the impulse to say "twenty-eight
next August." "Possibly," she reflected, "starting
at the bottom has not the inspiration at twenty-
seven that it has at seventeen." With a reversal of
all orderly traditions she inquired of Smythe:

"Don't you think we could promote Mr.
Nearing?'"

"Promote!" Smythe's jaw dropped open. Hilda
had, for the first time, the dm'gce^^ScJ^^ ^^\iasi^'s^ ^

214 THE WHITE MOTH

knowing she had been silly in the eyes of her sub-
ordinate.

"I thought, Mr. Smythe — this work is particu-
larly routine and uninteresting. He may have the
sort of mind that isn't adapted to it.''

"Adapted!" Sm5rthe repeated again.

Hilda flushed. "Naturally, if his work doesn't
seem to merit it. I shall go by your report."

Smythe had a grievance. In her own absorption
the thing had passed unnoticed by Hilda, but now,
having shut the ground glass door, the good-natured
little man plumped down beside her to let it out.

"Work, Miss Plaisted! That fellow don't know
what work is. He's not here to workT

Hilda, Smy the's friend since she was ten years old,
understood as few others would, the outraged ideals
that glittered in his middle-aged blue eyes, as
Smythe particularized.

The new man was nothing less than an insult to
an industriously working office. The new man mis-
placed papers and forgot errands ; he kept the whole
office force listening, after the lunch hour was over,
to some "contraptions" story invented to tease Miss
Mahoney. He was lax in the solemn service of
accuracy.

"I don't think he realizes — "

"Realize, is it?" Smythe pushed a paper under
her nose. "Here's the last bunch of bills that gink's
been checking up. Look a' here. Here they've

THE WHITE MOTH 215

charged phosphor bronze half a cent more than
they quoted. Does he spot it? No. Here's the
initials G. N. Better write it N. G., I say. Does
he think he's here for his health?"

Hilda sighed, realizing that Guy's attitude, other-
wise translated, was something of the sort.

"You see, Mr. Smythe, Mr. Nearing's trainmg has
been of a very different sort. I imagine routine is
really hard for him."

Smythe snorted.

"He has a mind very quick at general ideas. I
suppose he finds detail uncongenial."

Smythe gave expressionless reception to this care-
ful analysis. He did not ask how Hilda knew that
the new man had any talent for general ideas.

"That's the way he talks — when he says any-
thing. Always got some swell idea to turn the
Works upside down and spend a million dollars and
never cares a rap how you'd do it. Say, ain't that
fellow never worked?"

"He has not had to, Mr. Smythe." Hilda's tone
finished the conversation.

But the office manager, standing firmly planted
beside her desk, had a further complaint to plant.

"If you think this office is going well, when that
fellow don't care what hour of the day he stops work
and begins grouching or firing jokes — ! You'd
think he owned the place."

After this unexpected illumination they both sat

216 THE WHITE MOTH

still. Smylihe finished hastily. "It's a bad example
for the girls, you know. Though I guess Littlejohn
keeps pretty steady.'^

"I see." Hilda sighed deeply. "You had better
speak to him about these mistakes. I think I will
not — just yet."

"Speak to him! All right," agreed the balked
Smythe. "But you'll see what a lot of good it'll do,
Hilder. That feller thinks he's the king of England
— with a grouch."

It happened to be that very afternoon that the
incident occurred which crystallized Guy's attitude
into revolt. That was almost inevitable with Guy,
but Hilda had hoped against hope that the situation
could be made tenable. After she had seen his look
when she summoned him by the buzzer she knew
it could not.

In the first few days of deep hurt and yearning,
she had avoided summoning him to her office though
she knew the event would gain in significance as it
was postponed. Unexpectedly, this afternoon it
was upon her. There was a conference in her office
between Boyce, herself, and the representative of
the Hurley Company, about a confidential price for
steel flats. Smythe had mentioned that morning
that one of the Hurley letters was in Guy's hands,
and Smythe was out of the office. The letter hap-
pened to be needed and the men were in a hurry.
Hilda supposed Smythe had told Guy the number

THE WHITE MOTH 217

of rings which constituted the summons for his desk,
and she pressed the buzzer. Her eyes met his as
he entered. Boys at school used to be afraid of Guy
when he looked like that. It was a look of cold
rage he shot at her, sa3dng plainly that he would
have liked to strangle her where she sat.

"Will you get the Hurley Company's letter of the
24th, Mr. Nearing?"

He disappeared from the door without a word.
Boyce and the Hurley man continued their discus-
sion. Hilda, for the moment, did not heed the ar-
gument m which it was her business to furnish the
facts. Down the room she could see Guy's head
bent over the desk; he had not, as she feared, left
the building on the spot. But it must have been
pure nervousness which caused the delay while he
raced through several wrong files for the letter.
Boyce bit his lip and glanced out of the door, the
Hurley man openly made concessions to this
woman-run oflEice.

"Why aren't your letters kept sorted?" snapped
Boyce, when Guy reappeared.

The manager was generally careful not to inter-
fere in Hilda's office arrangements but the Hurley
man's attitude had nettled him. And it is fair to
say that keeping letters sorted was, to Boyce, among
the highest virtues.

"Thank you, Mr. Nearing," said Hilda.

She could have sobbed at \5afc ne^^^e^i '^'aS^ ^^^Sis^^

218 THE WHITE MOTH

her to turn briskly back to her conference. For the
moment she could have been angry at Guy that he
should object so absurdly to a rebuke from Anson
Boyce. Yet she knew that even if she could have
detained him and said kind and humble things^ it
would have been no use. Guy had always met dis-
agreeable things with anger.

She knew that things were changed after that —
there was no use in her trying to help. Guy, sav-
agely avoidmg her, made some effort to carry off
the work respectably, but she saw in his eyes the
reiterated question: "How can I get out of here?"
Hilda, whose whole life had been spent in the un-
worried doing of the next duty, could hardly wrench
herself to sufficient understanding. It seemed worse
to him, she supposed, than she knew. But there
were times when she wanted to put her head down
on her roll top desk and cry like a little girl.

It was after one such time that Anson Boyce
entered for a conference. If Hilda's eyes were wet,
it was so unbelievable that he probably decided it
was the sun. There was always something defer-
ential about Boyce's manner to Hilda. She had
grown to rely on its unobtrusive loyalty, the kind-
ness that made work easier than she knew. Boyce
was sometimes hard to others, not to Hilda. But
when she saw him now, calmly commanding in the
place where Guy should have been, she had a mo-
mentary feeling of rebellion.

THE WHITE MOTH 219

"Things going all right, Hilda?"

"Yes, Anson, Fm — tired.''

"That's not usual for you." His concerned, es-
timating look frightened her. But Boyce began to
consider obtaining Hilda's welfare as carefully as
obtaining a consignment of steel.

"If you cared to go away for a while — "

"Go away! Oh no!"

"I'm afraid there's too much pressure on you."
He sat, thoughtfully eyeing a paper on her desk as
if he contemplated making checks on it.

"Your office isn't undermanned?"

"You sent me another man a while ago."

"Oh, that reminds me. I think we'd better re-
place that Nearing. He seems a complete failure."

Hilda started, miserably aware that Boyce took
the movement as a sign of nervousness, possibly
degeneration.

"Oh. Hardly that."

"No? I've kept an eye on him more or less. I
feel under some obligation to his father. But it
seems to me the man has no intention of buckling
down to business."

"He — has some very interesting general ideas.
He was talking about the labor situation the other
day. He mentioned a scheme for workmen's rep-
resentation that was quite unusual."

"Workmen's representation! Does Nearing hap-
pen to know an}rthing about the men in the shops?

220 THE WHITE MOTH

Or how much we pay them? Or what their quali-
fications are?"

"I suppose not. I only wanted to show you that
there are some sides of the work that interest him."

"I see."

At Boyce's uncombative reception of this, Hilda
flushed to the roots of her hair. There was not an-
other department chief whom the manager would
not have called up short for such a statement. Her
association with him had been close in these years,
an exhilarating team work whose roots in emotion
neither of them examined. But Boyce's attitude
toward her was based on respect, Hilda knew, and
it moved her to the depths of her mature, working
self, to realize that he was now making concessions
to her very feminine weakness for a picturesque
young man.

"If Mr. Nearing proves really imsatisfactory, I
shall let you know, of course."

The manager looked troubled. "I owe his father
something. You imderstatid — don't you? That
was a square deal, my buying him out — "

"But hard," he had perhaps meant to say, and
Hilda was thinking it. Yet she could hardly blame
the man. He cared for the work as well as James
Nearing, and he was the better man. He rose, still
abstracted. Boyce, when in thought, had not the
black fiery quality of Guy. His face was a little
heavy, and never, since childhood, had been trained

THE WHITE MOTH 221

to express any emotion. But when he turned to
Hilda, there was a certain troubled gentleness in his
eyes. "I think you know best. Do what you feel
is right about it.''

That trust of Boyce's was, to Hilda, a heavy
weight. There could be no doubt of the new spirit
of disharmony in the office. The one wheel out of
gear passed on the friction to Littlejohn, who had
to do extra work on extensions, to Miss Love, held
up on the filing because Guy's quotation cards were
delayed, to Miss Mahoney, who had to retype more
than one letter when Smythe had discovered that
Guy's checking of a price must be corrected.

Probably Guy was unaware of it. He seemed,
when he sat staring with set teeth over the dusty
huddle of the yard, imaware of everything except
his own thoughts. It was a crucial time for Guy,
this first attempt to work, too late, and at a humili-
ating task. Fate might have planned some easier
test but to bring success out of this one, both Hilda
and Guy were powerless.

"He won't do, that's all/* Thus said Smythe.
And Hilda knew it was true.

The success and efficiency of her office was vital
to Hilda. She cared, not in principle, but with a
vigorous enthusiasm and joy in the work, that her
organization should be a good one. It was her own
creation, her second love, to which she had given
her maturity. And deliberately, for her own selfish

222 THE WHITE MOTH

reasons, she was allowing its driving power to be
sapped.

"Wouldn't he'' — she made one last appeal to
Boyce — "wouldn't he be more interested some-
where else?"

Boyce, Guy's opposite, had formed an opinion
many years ago as to his former employer's son. "I
can't see that a man who won't buckle down to work
would be in place anywhere."

ffilda was silent.

"Call him down or fire him," snapped Boyce.
Then, with that unusual perception he always had
where she was concerned, he added : "If you find it
an unpleasant job, send hun to me."

"Oh no!" Her words had been quick. "Ir— I
will speak to Mr. Nearing."

CHAPTER XIV

He could see her, through the open door. It
seemed to Guy that he could always see her, even
when his back was turned. She sat at the big oak
desk, with all the drawers and pigeon holes, a firm,
mescapable figure, with her quietly tummg head
and masterful hands. His own head turned vio-
lently whenever the sweep of those blue eyes ap-
proached him. It seemed to Guy that work in the
creaking room, where the dust motes were always
dancing through the heated air, was a nightmare
compound of long, futile strings of figures and
watching to avoid those eyes.

"Twenty-five lbs. No. 14 soft brass wire at 30
cents a lb. : $6.50. Ten feet f in. phosphor bronze
rod at 35 cents a foot : $3.50 — ^^

"Hey, Nearing, this Munson bill can't be filed
before the forge shop has seen it. There's an O. K.
missing."

"Sorry," Guy crushed the returned bill into its
proper pile.

"Should think people might be a little careful,"
Smythe muttered.

"Shipped by freight from Pittsburgh August 17,
as per your order : — "

224 THE WHITE MOTH

'What's the price on bones that Steinitz quoted?
The main oflSce wants to know quick. Get a hustle,
can't you, Nearing?"

The flies buzzed in the blazing emptiness of the
yard; by the old mill dam the water lay filthy and
scum-covered, marked by viscous rings; from the
freight spur, raucous voices shrieked and shrieked
again the same nasal command; the old building
reverberated maddeningly to the whir of old ma-
chines, grinding out cheap, unbeautiful things.

It would be hard to say how things might have
gone with Guy had he had any other chief than
Hilda. Certainly, now and then while walking
through the yards he had had stirring glimpses of
work as it might be, varied and stimulating, with
no haimting loss of dignity. He had always in-
tended to work like that some time, but not in the
very place where he had always figured as the heir
apparent. And not under the eyes of Hilda.

Probably neither James Nearing nor Boyce nor
Hilda, who took pleasureless duty so for granted,
had any idea how Guy revolted at adding up the
price of metal all day for some one else to make
decisions. They had been subordinates at the proper
time, not sirnk higloriously to it from a heritage of
superiority. Yet even this ordeal he might have
weathered with a somewhat different attitude, if it
had not been for Hilda.

It was Hilda's presence that set his thoughts to

THE WHITE MOTH 225

whirling so violently that attentive work was almost
an impossible thing. It was Hilda's maddening as-
sistance at this fiasco of his^ over which she had
every right to exult. He might have thought that
he owed Hilda something once, might for years have
kept that memory more vivid than he acknowl-
edged. But not while Hilda sat in a private office
and directed him to bring papers to hw desk.

"Sss! Mr. Nearing!"

'Tes, lady.''

Miss Mahoney, who considered Guy her allotted
young man, leaned across the aisle.

"I'd quit lookin' out of the window if I was you.
The big boss is just outside the door."

Guy had been deciding how funny the whole
thing was. Rawson at the ranch would laugh.

"Good-morning, Mr. Smythe. Good-morning,
Littlejohn."

Anson Boyce entered at the door toward which
all the desks faced. Smythe hovered respectfully
about his progress ; Miss Mahoney put on a devoted
burst of speed; Littlejohn stood up.

"Good-morning. Good-morning." The chief
passed the lesser desks almost unseeing. "Ah, I
hoped you would have the new catalogue from those
Pittsburgh people — " In a glow of important
matters he disappeared behind Hilda's glass door.

Guy saw no figures for the few minutes immedi-
ately after Boyce had passed. TVi&\» oWi^siV^^^^^^siis^^

226 THE WHITE MOTH

In the first days of his coming to the Works, he had
sometimes been able to visualize the end of this
infinite drudgery. That was before he realized that
nothing he said had value for anybody; that his
suggestions had about the weight of Miss Ma-
honey's.

''Did you know about Herb littlejohn? He's
been raised to twenty a week." Miss Love, across
the aisle, was confiding to Miss Mahoney.

''Grand!" nodded Miss Mahoney. little jdm was
above Guy.

"500 lbs. merdiant bar rounds and flats as fol-
lows: 2 pieces 25 ft. f in. rod, 5 ditto i by 1 in., 6
ditto i by i—"

"Is that your buzzer, Mr. Nearing?" Guy started
up with his eyes fierce. "No," he listened. "Ifs
SmytheV

Smjrthe disappeared behind the gjass door.

"Equals 150 lbs. at $2.25 per cwt"

"Mr. Nearing!"

Miss Kelly had used to smile at him but after a
f^ynical fling of his when she ei^iected flattery, she
had retired perplexed. Now, rathor hasty and ab-
stracted herself, she i^ppeared, the final annoyanoe,
beside his desL

"Ycsr

Miss Eelfy jerked a thumb. "She wants you."

He said nothing as he rose. Miss Edly stared un-
(Qtrnfortabty after him.

THE WHITE MOTH 227

"That fellow's got the pip," said littlejohn. The
ground glass door closed behind Guy.

"Mr. Nearing*' — it was almost the first time
Hilda had called him by his name. "It has seemed
so for some time that we ought to have a talk about
your work here."

"It's rotten. Is that what you mean?"

"I — I — " he saw the flush steal under her skin.
Hilda had always flushed like that. Guy set his
teeth. "I think perhaps you don't realize how really
important these routine details are. I — I once
did them myself. I — "

"You did them beautifully."

Hilda bit her lip. His eyes, as they glanced past
hers, were blazing.

"Everybody must learn. It takes time. But with,
a little attention — A person who wants to get
on — "

"I don't want to get on. Miss Plaisted.'*

Hilda glanced up and her eyes were dark and
pleading. She did not speak at all but he was able
to read, almost without knowing that he read, the
eyes of Hilda whom he had always known. "I want
to help you! Please let me help you! Please let
me help you!"

At the sight of those eyes in this place, there
flamed up in Guy all the latent bitterness and re-
bellion. He steadied himself a minute in the rush
of anger and then spoke ierkily. "1\J^\^^^^ ^Y^ssa^

228 THE WHITE MOTH

my being here. Was so at the beginning. My edu-
cation has hardly fitted me — to add up the price of
woodscrews all day."

"It needn't — be added up wrong."

It was the first definite criticism Hilda had ever
made, but Guy did not stop to think of that. If
she had made it before, perhaps he would have said
before what he did.

"Certainly not. You can get someone else to do
it."

"Oh, Mr. Nearing! I didn't mean — ! Please
don't misunderstand!"

Yet she had meant it. He knew from her fear.

"This is a good opportunity, Miss Plaisted. I
wish to resign."

She said nothing after that, looking at him with
the stricken, amazed look of the person mortally
injured before he is aware. It was the last time he
would have to see her, and Guy thought it was the
shock of freedom that turned him so cold. The sun-
light was bright on the floor of the room between
them, the whir of the machines came, a distant
crooning. Out in the other room the brisk, daily
movements were going and shadows passed and re-
passed beyond the ground glass door.

"Good-morning."

"Good-morning."

He was out. Falling into his desk chair, Guy felt
almost l^ht-headed. Somehow, the formalties were

THE WHITE MOTH 22Q

over. Smythe took the news wooden. Excited and
wistful, Miss Love and Miss Mahoney dismissed
from their lives the most colorful person they had
ever seen. The boards of the dusty room creaked
at his passage, the desolate, grimy yard stared its
jeers. Past the squawking gate, he was in the
streets of Cato, blazing and still, in the sunlight of
September.

"The ends of the earth! The very ends!'' He
felt as though he was shouting it breathlessly. He
noticed without concern how the few passers by on
the deserted streets looked, startled, at his face.
"IVe tried it! I've done what I could and it can't
be done." He was still hot with the reaction, the
imbearable horror that had been averted, when
Hilda would have dismissed him. "There's nothing
the old man can say now. There's no job but this
in Cato. The job doesn't want me and I can go.
Can go! Can GO!"

He was swinging, at breakneck pace down Maple
Street. With a subconscious perception that added
to his excitement, he noticed the deserted appear-
ance of the houses at this mid-morning hour. At
this time Cato lay imder the sunshine like a hive
of bees, all closed, with only the faint hmnming
from far within its walls to tell of the steady ac-
tivity that went on there. A very little child or
two played under the windows of a house, a woman,
her apron only temporarily ftvviv^ o^^\v^\3sw^\xss«^.

230 THE WHITE MOTH

one door to another^ a dog strolled vacantly or a
wagon rolled.

"The — little town!" whispered Guy between his
teeth. "The wretched soul-forsaken little mill!
This is all. After tomorrow I don't have to see it.
Any more."

He took his excitement for joy, there must have
been panic in it too. Guy had not considered yet
whether leaving the hardware works was defeat.

"Oh, I like your coming in the morning! It's like
buying me strawberries in November or any subtle
thing that looks cheap but is expensive."

"Supposing I weren't coming any more, Elsie?"

"Guy!"

When a man looks so happy it will not do to let
terror creep into the tone. Yet Elsie held her hand
suspended over the cigarette she meant to give him.

"Els, it's going to be all diflferent. I'm going out
to make my fortune now — or maybe not make my
fortune. It seems to me I don't care. But I'm
going to see things that are beautiful and people
that have time for leisure. I think I'll roam every-
where that it's fun to go and nowhere that people
are stupid!" He stopped at the sight of her face.

"Don't you like it here, Guy?"

"Like it! My God, Elsie."

"I didn't know it was so bad." Elsie's voice had
some hidden emotion in it.

THE WHITE MOTH 231

"Elsie, what do you think I am!'* So tense was
his feeling that, on looking up, he was dazed to see
the old bantering flattery in her face.

"A genius," smiled Elsie.

"I guess not.*' There was a pause.

"My dear boy, you take it too seriously, don't
you think?"

"Do you think so, Elsie?" He raised his head
to look at her, in a green and white striped gown,
flitting about her cool room. "Do you think you
could stand it — I wonder?"

"How worked up you are, Guy."

He stared at her ; the words came before he could
think. "Could you be the sort of — stoop shoul-
dered clerk — with dirty finger nails — that people
order aroimd! And sit in a row with little boys
just out of High School and old imbecile failures
and girls that you used to smile at a minute on the
street and then drop, because they were common
stuflf that couldn't amuse you. Could you watch
all the bosses' talk and the work that's fit for your
sort of people to do go on over your head, so far up
that you couldn't even reach to touch it! You
were sunk — sunk — among the failures T

His tone had been low, and not violent; Elsie
had shrunk at it. She shrank more at his contem-
plative, bitter statement : 'TTou never tried it. You
never tried it."

"My dear! I'm sorry."

232 THE WHITE MOTH

Guy was clutched by revulsion at her words. El-
sie was the one person before whom his armor of
nonchalance had been complete. In her patient
sympathy^ his quick senses read disillusion.

"I didn't know you weren't taking it as a joke.
You're like your father, Guy."

"It was an amazing interlude, no?" But his
flushed face was in his hands: as though the inter-
lude had been exhausting.

"It's over?"

"Oh, quite. I'm thinking about the Near East.
Want to come?"

"What do you mean, Guy?"

"I mean I'm insane. They made a mistake at
the Works, they diagnosed me as imbecile but it's
quite a mistake. I haven't any money, there isn't
any at all. And I can't go to the Near East, I have
to provide the Cato Citizen for my father. But
none of these things matter because, you see, I
can't stay in Cato. There are no jobs in Cato, I've
lost the last one there was, and so I'm going. That's
what I said, Els. Do you want to come with me?"

"You really are insane."

"Well, that's what you like me for, isn't it?
That's what everybody likes me for. Or don't they
like me? My father doesn't. Otto Marks doesn't.
Smythe at the oflSce doesn't — " His whimsical
singsong suddenly stopped.

"I do."

THE WHITE MOTH 233

"Nice little Els. That was your cue.''

"Guy, if you're going, I want to know it."

"Do you mean you paid attention to what I
said? You shouldn't pay attention to me. I meant
it."

She stood opposite to him, very serious, and Guy
felt an unusual stillness in the room.

"Well, Els! Shall we go to the moon?"

"If you like, Guy."

He crossed quickly to her, and saw burning ieyes
that looked into his. "I never thought I should
care for the moon, boy. I'm rather material. But
it's you."

"Why — This makes it all right."

It was an hour later when he left Elsie's porch,
with his face again alight. "I'm glad you brought
me back, Elisetta. You and I understand if no one
in Cato does."

"Don't leave your hat, Guy. You're still a little
crazy."

"But we can never come to Cato again. It puts
a spell on me. Oh, Els!" His pause was an ex-
hausted one. "I'm — so — glad — it's — over ! "

That unflattering slip was not like Guy.

He found the chocolate-colored mansion quiet.
Walking up its front steps, Guy felt every board
shriek at the morning invasion. The darkened hall
was tomblike; from the sitting room, only the
faintest rustle told him oi lua ia\S[i^V^ ^\^^iR2WiRi. K

234 THE WHITE MOTH

chill came over Guy; the steps still to be gone
through were disillusioning ones — for himself too.

"Something wrong at the Works?"

Mr. Nearing had been sitting apathetically. Guy
had grown used, by now, to the emaciation of his
hands, the imfocussed, sleeping look of his face.
But a new energy seemed to animate him now.

"They're going on as usual. IVe left."

'TouVe— "

Guy took his stand in the doorway. He had no
desire to enter this ugly, familiar room. Associa-
tion with it was over, almost without his volition.

"It's all up, Father. I'm no use there."

'Tfe — ye — " the old man's hands were jerking.
'Te didn't — want to stay, Guy?"

A wave of resentment poured over Guy and
caused him to rap out. "I did not. And they didn't
want me. If I hadn't gone I'd have been fired."

"Fired! My — son!"

Guy found the old man's vapid gaze uncanny.
He laughed hurriedly "It was to be expected, I
guess. They naturally wouldn't want me."

"That — a'n't true."

Guy was about to answer, but he saw the quiver-
ing look of James Nearing's mouth, the glassiness of
his gaze.

"I'm sorry — for your sake, Father."

"Oh. Never mind." James Nearing sat back in
silence.

THE WHITE MOTH 235

"I'll go somewhere else, Dad. I'll look around."

The older man still was silent. It was as though
the news had turned off some current of life in him,
leaving him incapable of any motion, even that of
a hand or an eyelid. The sight of him cast a chill
over Guy, he was such an inescapable responsi-
bility; his one wish was so unyielding.

"Really, Father, you'll see. I'll find something."

At last James Nearing spoke.

"Guy — I've been meaning to tell you — for
quite a spell. Maybe you won't have to stay but a
day or two. I don't — feel right. Since you're here,
if you would maybe — ^"

"Shall I get the doctor?"

"I guess so. I didn't think it would turn out to
be anything. But if you're going away — "

Half an hour later Guy stood with the doctor be-
side the patent rocker in the sitting room. James
Nearing lay back meekly in it with his eyes closed.

"Why didn't you send for me before?"

"I didn't notice, doctor."

"We'll get him upstairs at once. I'll send you a
nurse."

"I'd better not leave town — even for a day — to
look for work?"

"You had not. Mr. Nearing's a sick man."

CHAPTER XV

"Oh, I didn't mean to disturb you ! I just came
in to ask Helga how Mr. Nearing was."

It was Mrs. Fowler, from down the street, passing
through the sitting room as one who knew her way.
Guy had jumped up from the armchair where Mr.
Nearmg used to sit. She paused, respectfully, as
one does to the Family when there is illness.

"What was his temperature this morning?"

"Oh — I don't believe I know."

Mrs. Fowler puckered her chin. "I wonder if he
ate any of Mrs. Sutton's moss jelly. We all thought
that would be the thing he could take."

"I — haven't heard."

The neighbor showed surprise, but the Family
was not to be questioned. "You've had an anxious
time," she said kindly.

"The doctor thinks he may be all right."

"I know. I know. We're all so much relieved.
We think a great deal of Mr. Nearing."

"You people are very good to us."

Mrs. Fowler shot a glance of curiosity at her en-
gaging young host. She said solemnly: "There
aren't many like your father. He's been an ex-

236

THE WHITE MOTH 237

ample to the whole town. I often tell my boys if
they can grow up like Mr. Nearing — !"

It had the effect of silencing Guy. Mrs. Fowler
finished, with her small, light-gray eyes wet, "You
see — we know him. Well, let me know the minute
I can do anjrthing."

Guy dropped into his chair again, but there was
little use in going back to his train of thought. For
a week, now, there had been no room in the house
where he could sit without the intrusion of some
kindly, capable neighbor. In the first few days,
after he had installed the nurse and obeyed the
doctor's directions, Guy had had a guilty sense of
relief in the silent house. He could use the day as
he was accustomed to, come and go in work hours
unrebuked. Released from his father's silent ob-
servation he might recover his old ease of mind, dis-
turbed by James Nearing and the Works.

He reckoned without Cato. The house was not
empty, the neighbors thronged it by right of service.
And he could not come and go as he liked, his
mission was to wait, breathless, to be of use. The
extent to which he could do this measured, to Cato,
the extent of his importance. Had he thought to
buy the new pillow recommended? No? Then
Mrs. Hubbell would provide one. He could not re-
lieve Mr. Nearing's anxiety about Nels Mimsen at
the Works? Then someone would telephone to An-
son. Cato, aU the closely-kmt) iasca!^\ax^

238 THE WHITE MOTH

in to support the one that was tottering. And Guy
made way humbly for them, with a sense that the
enfeebled old man upstairs belonged to them
rather than to himself.

In the intervals of springing up to answer the
neighbors' questions^ he wandered about the rooms
downstairs where he seemed present only as a ghost,
with no right of possession. These rooms were made
for men of another sort thdn he, he could not feel
at home in them. Mrs. Nearing used to soothe and
hearten him imtil the rooms did not matter. Now
they stood out stark.

'Tfou're not here for long/' the neighbors said,
aloof and respectful. And in his heart Guy pas-
sionately assented.

It had been disillusioning: more than he thought.
He was going now from Cato shorn of the convic-
tion that had always sustained him. He no longer
thought that life was all ahead; that the time for
the first step in a solid career awaited him. He
did not know himself how much the slipping away
of this ballast had meant. He had not thought
about the past. He had thought only that when
his father was well or when his father was — past
the need of him: he could go.

Cato people would not understand it. He had
lived, already, too many days under their puzzled
eyes to expect that. Cato people would find James
Nearing^a son beyond them, but they could scarcely

THE WHITE MOTH 239

blame. The little man lying upstairs was a failure.
Because his pitiable collapse had clipped another's
wings, no one was to blame. Guy would be gener-
ous enough for that.

"Has the doctor been in yet this afternoon?"

It was Mrs. Hubbell, Janey's mother, with her
little sharp brown eyes and her quick movements,
very like a darning needle.

"Not yet. Would you like to wait, perhaps?"

Mrs. Hubbell, who made their clothes, had a
chronic respect for the prosperous citizens of Cato.
She was standing now, quite meekly, yet a thor-
oughly positive little person, looking up at the well-
dressed stranger.

"You look real worried. I know how you must
feel. We all think so much of Mr. Nearing."

"Yes," said Guy gently. "WiU you sit down?"
He had sometimes a feeling of loneliness outside the
little circle that enclosed his father so loyally. It
was a feeling near homesickness that made him
linger near Mrs. Hubbell, sitting in Mrs. Hearing's
chair.

"Godfearing people, your father and mother,"
said Mrs. Hubbell. Her little sharp face was sweet,
as talking of things she cared about. "And Mr.
Nearing is a wonderful fine man. I've known him
ever since I lived in Cato."

"He has good friends here."

There flitted across Guy's rcouOL ^\. ^^ ^s^ssoiss*.

240 THE WHITE MOTH

the realization that there was no place in all the
world to which he could turn and draw forth loyalty
like that

"I'm sure it's nice for you to be with your father
while he's ill. Of course there's nothing you would
care to do in Cato."

Guy unexpectedly wistful admitted: "I haven't
found anything."

"You're not the kind for us. You'll be off to
foreign parts again."

Mrs. Hubbell rocked in silence. Her little figure
in its brown dress, not formless, but stiff and ser-
viceable with a character that spoke of Cato, seemed
to fit into that room while Guy ranged about it, an
alien. Yet it was a feeling near homesickness that
kept him there beside Janey's mother who sat rock-
ing in Mrs. Nearing's chair.

"I found which water tap that was in the cellar
that Mr. Nearing was worrying about. I got it
turned off."

*Tou are good, Mrs. Hubbell!"

"And you know about the side door? The nurse
asked to-day if you locked it at night. He always
did."

"I win."

Mrs. Hubbell seemed to have no more to say
to him, Guy had a feeling of having slid out of
focus. She rocked with gathered brows, putting in
time on iiousehold problems. Guy tried a friendly

THE WHITE MOTH 241

approach, strolling to the table where she was ex-
amining a faded piece of pottery.

"I expect you never saw one like that before.
They dug that up in Peru, which I once visited."

"Oh, yes. Your mother told me you had been
there.*'

She had no interest to ask further : Mrs. Hubbell's
world did not include Peru. Guy bit his lip. But
the silence which fell upon them left insistent but
unexpressed, those things which Mrs. Hubbell had
interest to ask: "Why did you go to that place and
stay so long? What were you doing there that
counts? How could you justify it to your mother,
waiting for you till she died?"

"I wish I could help, anyhow," said Mrs. Hubbell.

"Thanks. There isn't anything."

He fell upon the next visitor, eyes glittering.
"Can't they stay home, Elsie? They're going to
wither me through the floor because I don't know —
what Dad likes to eat."

" It's getting on your nerves, Guy. Why on earth
should you niind?"

"I don't know." The words were said with real
astonishment.

^'How queer you look." Elsie drew near, a finger
caressingly on his sleeve. "You're lonely."

"Lonely as heU."

"Come in the front sitting room and play with
me. He doesn't want yoU| do^.Yi^T/

242 THE WHITE MOTH

"Elsie, he never wants me. I just sit here."

"Well, then, just sit here." They smiled as he
took his place beside her. "We're very well-be-
haved : even Cato can see. There goes one of them
now."

"Elsie — what would you think — if I really
hadn't any money? You understand, like — like
the man that sells pencils on Main Street."

Elsie was silent for a moment. "You mean," she
said in a reasonable tone, "something about Cal-
copyrite?"

"Something? Yes. I fear those people were
fools. About as big as me." He grinned at her
sympathetic face. "They never made sure of their
claim and now a lawsuit's on that's going to do
them out of it."

"Not actuaUy, Guy?"

"I imagine so." He was extremely weary. "I
don't care. Do you?"

"What will you do, Guy?"

"Oh, pick up something." He was angry and
Elsie had to wait patiently for the flash to pass.
"It would be easy enough — anywhere but here.
I have brains."

"Of course you have."

There was silence between them.

"You'd have to start at the beginning somewhere,
I suppose." »

'What do you mean, Els I" He turned on her

THE WHITE MOTH 243

80 suddenly resentful that Elsie was ashamed of her
calculating mood.

"I don't know what I mean. I can't think —
where it's about you. Were you crazy the other
day, Guy?"

"I wish I need never talk to anybody but you,
Els. Till I'm out of here."

"Talk to me."

But after a cajoling five minutes, Guy jumped.
"Elsie—!"

"Why, Guy, how absimlly nervous you are."

"Who is that that came down the stairs?"

"Who is that? Lean out of the way. Why, Hil —
slinking out the back way. Is anything the matter,
Guy?"

"She wouldn't — He must be worse."

Elsie left soon, finding his distraction unap-
proachable. Guy tiptoed upstairs to the black wal-
nut-furnished bedroom that looked on Nearing
Street.

"His condition is very much less satisfactory,"
admitted the calm nurse at the door. "He asks
something about Calco Pyrite."

"Tell him it's — all right."

"I would not give up hope yet, Mr. Nearing. He
may rally. But he is very weak."

Downstairs, the house was unwontedly still. It
was the supper hoin*, when each neighbor had re-
turned to her own hearth and ?,%.\SaKc^ V^'t \»3sSci

244 THE WHITE MOTH

about her. The sitting room glowed with evening
sunlight on green chairs, brass fender, and flowered
carpet. On the mantelpiece, the onyx clock shiv-
ered with its ticking; in the rocker, Helga, unable
to break the habit of years, had placed the Evening
Citizen.

In the door of this room where he was only a
stranger, Guy paused. The one benign miracle
brought by approaching death, which makes pos-
sible understanding of those we might have loved,
blurred his eyes.

"He doesn*t deserve to go this way. I wish
Mother were here to comfort — us both,"

Before the sunlight finally faded from the sitting
room, Guy's thoughts had touched, half consciously,
on the only other woman he had ever known who
could do that.

"I thought I'd never make ye hear." Helga was
in the door, brisk and perfunctory as in everything
where Mr. Nearhig was not concerned. "Yer
supper's ready. And a'n't ye seen the letter I put
on the mantelpiece?"

He took it up, dazed, and saw the Calcopyrite
letter head. "Regret — obliged to inform stock-
holders—verdict rendered against this company.
Machines will be sold on the ground but cannot
give hopes of clearing anything for stockholders."

Anything! He had not really visualized it,
though James Nearing had €i]^okesi oi thia eventu-

THE WHITE MOTH 245

ality. The house was mortgaged; there were put-
standing debts.

"I'm Sony for the old man. It's not all his
fault."

He thought of that in the endless, disturbed
night, when the nurse came more than once to give
him bulletins. The poor, plodding soul, with a task
too big for him, who had begun in humility and
ended in failure, had wanted to do well. It was not
this end that Guy had looked forward to, or been
led to expect all these years. His own wings were
clipped, and possibly forever. Mrs. Nearing would
have minded that, but he was dulled to it. This
meant the end. Now, with a clean slate and no
responsibilities he would soon leave Cato forever.

He heard the sycamore creak outside while he
thought this, outside his window that looked on the
little yellow house. Hilda had not understood, any
more than Cato had. They were all trying to drag
him to some dull, unlovely idea of reality which was
the only thing they knew. He had forgotten his
birthright in Cato, — the brilliance that was wait-
ing somewhere.

The next morning he sat in the oak dining room.
Children were shouting past on their way to school;
a belated father hurried down Nearing Street with
his newspaper; women ran bareheaded to the gates
calling a last word after husbands and children. All
the town was astir at its whol^-\v^M\i^\3i^Hk^x^:?3ca^*

■J,

246 THE WHITE MOTH

"Take this letter if you're going to the comer,
Helga. It's to South America."

The nurse stood in the door. "I think you had
better come now, Mr. Nearing."

Guy's face looked a question and she nodded. "It
may be — the end. He is asking for you."

A deep pity smote Guy at this sunmions from the
bankrupt head of the family to his heir. The great
man of the town should have been departing full
of years and honors, and summoning his son to hear
the secret of his success. And instead, he was slip-
ping away ignominiously, with perhaps some part-
ing word of regret to the son who had never been
a companion and who knew him to be a failure.

"Poor old boy!" Guy thought with a rush of
feeling. "It's a rotten way to go!"

The nurse placed a chair for him and disappeared
through the opto door. The chair was a rocker with
a little patchwork cushion, the one his mother had
used.

"Coming on all right, Father?" Guy tried to be
casual.

Very slowly James Nearing turned his white face
toward his son. Guy looked at the ravage that had
been made with a kind of awe, for it was as though
an outer shell of stolidity had been removed and
one saw the finer core of James Nearing. He did
not speak for a minute: that mere look of his was
enough to answer Guy's question. The son did not

THE WHITE MOTH 247

speak again^ the atmosphere of the room was too
deadly, too apparent.

"Guy'* — the voice was miexpectedly strong,
James Nearing's old voice with all its clearness of
enunciation. And there was, in the address, the old
deliberation and stubbornness. So, Guy remem-
bered, his father talked at the factory when he had
something to say:

''Guy — I haven't been a very good father to
you."

Sol That was all. Guy's face softened at the
pathos of this conventional relationship, carried
through to the end. The old man took his failure
as hard as all that! Then, at least, these last words
together were made simple; one could give him a
little happiness.

"Indeed you have! Don't feel that way.**

There was no change in the face turned toward
him. It seemed as if those unwavering eyes were
surveying an image of James Hearing's son very
familiar to his thoughts, rather than the actuality
before him.

"No, I have not."

"Oh, I say, Father—"

"I ought," James Nearing went on, in the quiet,
unaccented voice of self-communion, "to have told
you before that you were no good."

"That—!"

Guy was sitting three feet awaj fecraiV^\ai^^

248 THE WHITE MOTH

It was a physical impossibility for him^ at first, to
believe that the words had really been spoken by
the man on the pillow. That man was looking lu-
cidly at him, yet he must be raving. The meek
little toiler, who had always moved on a plane below
his wife and son, who had been conscious foi* so
many years of his inadequacy and of his progressive
failure, this man had never spoken to Guy in terms
other than those of distant courtesy and of apology!
Guy had never troubled himself as to what his
father thought. It had been in the backgroimd of
his mind that the older man must look with re-
spect, and possibly with a little envy, at his own
more brilliant capabilities. Perhaps it was his
mother who had lodged the thought there; she cer-
tainly shared it. James Nearing spoke on:

"I thought of telling you sometimes, when I saw
how you was going, but your mother wouldnH have
it. She expected a lot of you — your mother. I^m
not blaming you, Gujr*' — the voice was quite
kindly — "it was pretty much my fault for not
telling you."
*Tou think — I^m no good — now?"
^TVhy, are you?" James Nearing's voice was still
quite calm, as though the situation held nothing
new for him. "You're twenty-eight, aren't you?
And you ain't never done anjrthing's I know of."

"I sort of hoped you could get a start here with

THE WHITE MOTH 249

Anson — I didn't expect so much of you as your
mother did, I was sorry you couldn't do that. I —
was sorry."

"I say! I didn't know—''

James Nearing turned an expressionless regard on
his son, as if it were immaterial to him what Guy
could have failed to know that would have aided
a man of his age to keep an eighteen-dollar job.

"I'm sorry," he said, "for your mother. It seems
too bad, her having to put up with the two of us.
She was worth better." It was then that the flash
of intense feeling passed across his steady blue eyes.
"She was a wonderful woman, your mother. It was
hard for her to want so much and then have only
two failures, like you and me."

"Failures! Two—"

Half of this statement was commonplace to Guy.
He had been used to thinkuig of his mother as tragi-
cally tied to a failure. But the other half! James
Nearing carried the conversation on alone, after
that. It was a confession that he was making, a
final atonement, made by that imdeviating con-
science of his, which had allowed the great passion
of his life to divert him, in just one thing, from the
uncompromising truth.

"I a'n't any call to blame you, Guy. With me
for a father, perhaps you couldn't be expected to
be anything much. But I hoped you would — for
her. She thought I was gomg to\» ^Xsmj^tmss^^^^^?^

250 THE WHITE MOTH

see/' — again the flash of tenderness — ''I tried.
That's why the last money went. I suppose you
know. But it wa'n't in me. I had persistence; I
could work; but I just didn't have the ability," He
glanced at his son, quite dispassionately. 'Tou have
ability — they tell me, but you haven't any persis-
tence. It comes to the same thing. You'll go oflf —
I suppose — after I'm dead, like you been doing.
Well, that's all right. I can't expect you to do any
better than I've done. I hope you'll be happy."

There was a great weariness in the man's face.
His last duty done, he leaned back and spoke the
final words of a self-communion held through many
years.

"It a'n't really your fault, I guess. We're a couple
of failures. Only I'm sorry — for Her."

James Nearing closed his eyes.

In the deserted rooms downstairs, quiet through
all the morning life of the street about them, Guy
paced waiting for the end. They resented his pres-
ence, those clean, homely rooms, with the tapestried
chairs, whose tassels had been lost when he was a
child, with the black vases painted with sunflowers,
the red table cover embroidered for Mrs. Nearing's
betrothal. The house itself, in its four-square sim-
plicity, seemed to cry out against his alien presence,
and Guy told it, told himself.

"It isn't true. I can prove to him it isn't true."

Through closed doors he heard the neighbors'

THE WHITE MOTH 251

anxious voices arrive and recede. No one disturbed
him. From James Nearing's room above there was
no sound.

"They'll have to let me talk to him. I can prove
to him it isn't true."

The nurse stood in the door: "Mr. Nearing — is
gone."

CHAPTER XVI

"I WANT work, Mr. Boyce."

"I wish you did not."

The two men sat facing each other in Boyce's
little office almost as they had done six months ago.
Boyce, as he had done then, waa making rapid
checks across a sheet of paper, but his lips were
compressed. And Guy had no remnant of, the
casual mien of that other time. It was the fierce
concentration of his manner which was embarrass-
ing the manager and causing the pause before he
objected :

"I came — Mr. Nearing — during the time that
you were with us — to agree — more or less — with
your own estimate. You are not" — Boyce made
his concluding check — "fitted for our sort of work."

"Mr. Boyce, I intend to fit myself."

It was a hard moment for Anson Boyce. He had
many important matters on his hands that morning
and the last item he had expected to add to his
troubles was the son of his former employer, looking
as though the burdens of the world had descended
on his shoulders, breathing grim determination from
the chair opposite. The even-handed Boyce felt

252

THE WHITE MOTH 253

that he had sufficient reason for not likmg Guy. He
could hardly be expected to visualize the devas-
tating days after James Nearing's funeral which had
swept clean all the old conceptions^ leaving only the
frantic desire to regain self-respect by any road. He
thought the man looked different and said in some
^embarrassment :

"I had meant to ask — Mr. Nearing — I under-
stand your father's finances were somewhat in-
volved. I feel a sense of loyalty to him. If a loan
would be of any use — "

"I want work."

Boyce's sigh was not evident, but there was a
resignation about him as he took up the payroll.
"Your old place, of course, is filled."

"I don't want the offices. I've been to the forge
shop. They were doubtful, but I want a place. I
want to learn this business."

"I don't think I can promise — "

"You don't have to promise. But I wanted you
to know."

"They may try you in the forge shop, Mr. Near-
ing." The manager produced a dutiful smile.
"Good-morning."

So, from one day to the next, Guy's world shifted
from solid respectability and the glinmaering back-
ground of adventure, to the smoky, low-ceiled forge
shop and a lodging house room. He hardly noticed
the change. It^ is doubtful if li^ ioxoA *^^ ^^^

254 THE WHITE MOTH

dark or the work tiresome. He had, at the moment,
attention for only one thing, to silence a voice which
spoke from a deserted house on Nearing Street —

unanswered.

The mortgage on the house was foreclosed and
the furniture sold. James Nearing had taken it
for granted that his son would not allow his memory
to suffer the ignominy of small debts and the money
had gone to pay them. With no one in Cato to
care what he did, it had seemed to Guy that there
was only one thing he wanted: to start where
Jimmy Doane had started ten years ago. There was
hardly much exhilaration about it. In the first few
days Guy did not see ahead at all. He worked des-
perately, like a man under water who fights to reach
the top, with sensations little different from those
of drowning.

. Cato saw nothing creditable about it. For Cato,
once and for all, the bubble of Guy Nearing, the
super-being, had burst, leaving only a drab, unre-
markable worker bearing already, because he was
older and less carefree than the beginners about
him, some of the earmarks of failure. Guy ignored
the existence of Cato. It would be hard to say
why, when he was earning no less money than he
had a few months ago and with a far worthier mo-
tive, when he was doing the thing in which he hoped
to find salvation, he should have avoided every
Mend he had with a savage determination. Otto

THE WIITE MOTH 255

Marks and Jimmy Mallison^ kind of intent and not
consciously patronizing, were passed by him with
such a fierceness of eye that they searched their
consciences for days, mourning tactlessness, Anson
Boyce never even glimpsed him.

Elsie Rice sent him two notes and then he came
to the bungalow. "Oh, Guy ! I didn't realize it had
been so bad. What is it?"

She was carried away. Elsie had not meant quite
that, for Cato knew that the Nearing fortune was
gone; and more than that, the plans for going to
the moon had had no sequel,

"Nothing's the matter. I'm just working."

"At the Works?" The commiseration on her face
changed, to amazement, to anger. Then expression
was wiped out.

"If you like it—"

^'I don't like it."

There was a silence. It was as though they had
come to ground which they could not tread together.
Elsie's eyes flashed invitation which was imheeded,
and appeal, quickly veiled, and irritation, almost
overmastering. She was no friend to the Puritan
spirit of James Nearing which had her playmate in
such fiCTce thrall. Perhaps she guessed its grip,
knowing Guy. At any rate, Elsie bit her lip and
then smiled very casually.

"Come around some time."

When Guy saw her next, die N<i«»a m ^^ ^^^xs:^"«S!^

256 THE WHITE MOTH

of Horace Liggett, the new rich man who had come
to Cato and bought the Nearing house. Elsie
smiled inscrutably but Guy, perhaps, found it not
inscrutable.

Guy did not come around. Instead, nightly after
overtime work, he turned east to the Iridi section
and put his key in the lock at Mrs. Sterrit^s.

Guy had played over this land, half built, when
he was a boy, and had thought of it since as the
master of the house thinks of certain portions of
the attic and cellar where it is hardly his function
to go. When, looking for a cheap room, he had
found that Mrs. Sterrit offered the only one, he had
not quite been able to grasp things. It was not
possible that he should acknowledge as hiis only
anchorage on earth this cheap, jerrybuilt house
with screaming children on the front steps; its
stuffy hall redolent of varnish and matting and the
general heat generated by a family of six.

It was not that Mrs. Sterrit's was uncomfortable.
Guy, in the course of picturesque wanderings, had
slept in many a room to which the present one was
a haven of comfort. He had left them light-hearted
and without a whit of loss to his self-respect. They
constituted adventure; and dignity, though scoffed
at, was awaiting him. But the daily living in Mrs.
Sterrit's house, which contained the necessary fur-
niture, the necessary plumbing, the necessary heat-
ing, to meet the requirements of civilized man,

THE WHITE MOTH 257

became a hardship to which freezing and starvation
would have been second. It was because everybody
took his being there for granted. He was the sort
of man to live in this house.

That was what they thought, the Irish carpenter
and Swenson of the assembly room who paid Mrs.
Sterrit as much rent as Guy. They were people he
would not have talked to in the old days, or not
with anything but pleasant patronage. But in the
wmter evenmgs when the furnace register sent up
a damp, discouraging blast and even the study of
steel processes grew wearing, he shared experiences
with them, grouped on a sagging bed with their
pouches of tobacco.

The carpenter had a grievance. He had lost two
fingers some years ago and in consequence someone
named Peter Dugan had got ahead of him. Swen-
son had a secret feud with the foreman which kept
him monotonously intoning for hours. James Near-
ing would have been aghast to hear these men talk
about the Works. It was nothing dear and ad-
mirable to them — simply an ugly necessity. They
seemed to have no idea of making it otherwise nor
any thought of escape. They assumed that the new
lodger's attitude was the same.

It was by no means the same. Resigned endur-
ance was the one attitude not possible to Guy. He
expected the work to be dull, even found fot tfci&
present a bitter stimulua m i\», "ftvAV^ ^^sa^ ^^yss^-

258 THE WHITE MOTH

ished to find in these men some of the revolt Hiat
had troubled him. Other men trami)ed up the
stairs sometimes of a Saturday night or on the
cheerless Sunday mornings when the house smelled
of stale coffee and Jake Sterrit pervaded the halls
half dressed. Their conversation seemed mostly
about grievances, from the basic ones about wages
and hours to the most far-fetched conclusions about
a foreman's favoritism or wilful obstruction by the
nmnagement.

It sounded familiar to Guy: It had been his own
attitude. He was far from condemning these men,
caught in the same treadmill as himself, who grew
petty and lost interest in accomplishment. But
Guy, for the present, was through with grievances.
Just now he saw no road for himself but success over
all obstacles, even unjustifiable ones. It was this
attitude which procured him a role in the forge shop
as xmexpected to himself as to any one else in thd
factory.

"This is a rotten place," said the Swede who
worked next to Guy.

It was toward the close of a rainy winter's day.
In the smoky gloom, surly figures came and went,
obscuring and revealing the red points of light from
furnace and anvils. Guy did not contradict the
statement.

"Look what kind of stuff they give us for make
rakes. Can't forge her. SVve bM«»ts, Heia?"

THE WHITE MOTH 259

Guy had noticed himself the poor quality of the
iron. It would, at one time, have constituted only
one of the weary incidents of the day. But it hap-
pened that he had been looking into the matter of
iron on his own accoimt, had even been, a few days
before, to the stock room to refresh memories, latent
for many years.

"It's a mistake of the stock keeper. All we have
to do is explain to Mike and get it fixed."

The Swede lightened. "Huh? Well, you do it.
Me, he'll think I'm sore."

After all, some memory of James Nearing's in-
struction must have lurked in Guy's head, for he
was able to show Mike Moran the ill-chosen bars
of iron. The men had aU been surly about the
matter for days.

"Well, that's good, Nearing. If the fellows took
a little interest" — Mike was an old foreman and
the inrush of new hands and new work had swamped
him. It was his custom to consider that workmen
weren't any good any more and thus dispose of all
forge shop difficulties.

"If I had only one decent workman with sense
to explain things to these square-heads!" stormed
Mike, ^We could now and then find out what's
really the matter." That decent workman turned
out to be Guy.

He could hardly blame the men for their 8urline)9&.
Work at the Nearing imJl -^jse ^i\^ ^ ^^ "^^^^ ^

260 THE WHITE MOTH

others in the neighborhood^ but in spite of its
growth the Cato Works tolerated surprisingly primi-
tive conditions.

The forge shop was a wooden shack with two
rows of small, grimy windows. Its earthen floor
covered with anvils, forges and power hammers
most of them of an early tjrpe, without safeguards
or conveniences. When a good-natured little group
of men, friends both of James Nearing and of Mike,
had done their pioneering here, the place had been
good enough. But the shed had been enlarged and
the old machinery taken over, with no added con-
venience and much less friendliness.

The thirty men who worked there, Germans and
Swedes for the most part, had drifted in from a dis-
tance and had no loyalty to build on. Mike, the
Irishman, was not of necessity a friend of theirs, and
Mike was old and arbitrary. Guy, too, had smarted
under his full-throated criticisms and, if there had
been no driving power to keep him, would have
walked out of the shop that day. The other men
had also a driving power to keep them — need. It
never occurred to them to walk out of the shop,
but only to gather in gloomy little knots at noon,
glancing darkly around and reiterating expression-
lessly that it was a hell of a place. Natural bom
kickers, James Nearing would have called these
men. Anson Boyce would have concluded with
pursed lips, that they expected a factory manager

THE WHITE MOTH 261

to be omnipotent. To Guy, who in other days
would have been the least patient of the three, came
a glimpse of their basic trouble. They were like
himself — they saw no way out.

That human problem kept him thinking, almost
as much as the process of knife making, which he
had resolved to learn from start to finish. After
all, it was men rather than machinery which had
always appealed to Guy. There were the usual
strike threats being whispered, as there were in most
factories. It was hardly the fact that he had once
been on the owner's side which kept Guy from jom-
ing the whisperers: it was more that he wanted to
have made good indubitably as a worker before he
protested. The others might already have that
right. Not he.

Those were thrilling days for Guy when he first
prowled around the Works, watching and investi-
gating, with a problem to solve. It was during these
explorations that he came upon Hilda's trail. In
the shops, in the stock room, in the yards, wherever
he went to find out what was being done and how,
Hilda had been there before him. He began to
understand into what those silent years of hers, to
him a pitiable blank, had gone.

"Oh, yes, Hilder used to be always in the forge
shop," Mike told him. "It takes a lot of real seeing
before you understand knives. But her and Mr.
NearingI They were the pw\>\fi^ \fi ^ \s&*^>^^

262 THE :WHITE MOTH

"I'll show you our stock room system, if you like.
Miss Plaisted organized it."

And, out in the yards the foreman told him:
"Yeh, I thought it was kind of funny at first, but
I tell you, she's a Man!"

It was meant to refer to character and ^ot to sex :
they did not think of Hilda as a man. Her ways
were different from theirs, her approach more direct,
her understanding more shot with sympathy. She
brought some simple, wholesome thing into the
drive of work: an imtroubled concentration on her
task, a serene absorption in making the day fruital.

Had Guy known all these things, when he sat
within a few feet of Hilda? And during the years
when communication was cut between them? He
thought not, but some foimdation there must have
been, for the revelation now was so complete, his
acceptance of it so absolute. He had not seen her.
At rare intervals she passed the door of the forge
shop,, he caught sight of her head among those of
the home-going crowd. As this time, for the first
in all their history, he felt an immense distance be-
tween them. It was Hilda who had put the distance
there, not he. Starting now on the road she had
already taken, he had his first sober understanding
of what the actual use of years must mean.

At first he had been horribly afraid she would
appear, that he must look up at any minute,
schooled to meet her eyes. But Hilda, as wdl as

THE WHITE MOTH 263

he, seemed to feel the need of separation. It was
as though some chapter had ended in their relations
and each needed to breathe alone for a little while.
Hilda was perhaps glad to be free, on whatever
terms, of trying to help him. When he was sure
that he need not dread Hilda's bodily presence, he
began to think of her.

He was not sure she would understa&d the prob-
lem that absorbed him now. Hilda could not have
seen the men at Mrs. Stenit's and the forge shop
as Guy could. She, by a divine accident of sanity,
had never known frustration. But, keeping in mind
the simplicity of her attitude, which generated pro-
ductivity as the sun does heat, he made efforts
towards adjustment in the forge shop which would
hardly have occurred to him on first impulse.

"Look a' the wash basins they give us," said the
blacksmith's helper washing up beside him. "Like
coal bins."
"We don't have to leave 'em that way."
"Aw, you must be workin' for the management."
It may have been then that the idea occurred to
Guy that it was possible for a man to work for the
management, presenting the requirements of these
neglected human machines in no invidious sense.
He offered next day:

"Mike, if I tell you exactly how much it would
cost to get more wash basins and get the men to
keep them clean, will you put it \i^ ti^i ^^ V^^^''

264 THE WHITE MOTH

"Aw, what do ye take me for?'*

"It's not impossible, I think we'd gain from it."

"The devil take trouble makers/' said Mike.

The days passed and the wai^ basins remained
as they had been. It was one little grievance among
many, but a justified one. Guy, with the figures
made out, pondered. If he could go to Boyce with
this, his first complaint, there would probably be
but one answer — discharge. And no other man
would go. He was sorry to leave a grievance of men
who had more rights than he, unredressed; already
they were looking to him for guidance. But when
next he went to Anson Boyce more must be talked
about than wash basins.

He had been thinking fast these few dayB and the
plan for which he had been searching was ready.
James Nearing and Mrs. Nearing would not have
understood this zeal of their son for the human side
of the factory, a side which to them had hardly ex-
isted. But Guy, coming fresh to the work from a
very different scheme of life, was possessed by a
vision of the waste and inefficiency being practised
on the human machine. Others might deny that
maladjustment and discontent should interfere with
a man's work. Guy did not. He knew that even
the union, making its natural claim for less of the
disagreeable work and more reward for it, had not
seen everything. Men do not want to be idle, they
want to create.

THE WHITE MOTH 265

Guy saw ahead of him years of work. He did
not know to what his study of shop conditions,
placing of men, arbitration of grievances, would
lead. But he was determined to acquire the knowl-
edge and the standing which would convince Anson
Boyce that he was the man to remake these things.

"It'd be just like Hilder to put yer little wash-
bowls over wid de big boss. And maybe some of
them other contraptions too."

It was Saturday afternoon and the forge shop
was empty save for Guy and the foreman. It was
only the informal discipline which was a legacy of
James Nearing and the indulgence, without ad-
miration, . accorded to Guy, which permitted him
to be there, bending over a vise.

;Tou told — Miss Plaisted?"

"Yeh. Hilder was down here last night askin^
how things was comin' on. Used to be around here
most all the time but I don't know what's struck
her lately."

There was silence from the bench by the grimy
window where Guy was working.

"I told her you give me the figgers. Didn't ex-
pect you to be here this afternoon."

"Why?"

"Well, she wanted to see how it would look by
daylight."

"Good heavens, Mike!'* The hoe blade in Guy's
hands went clattering down. B\it \\» ^^s^ ^ *^^

266 THE WHITE MOTH '

moment that the purchasmg agent opened the door.
"Oh, did you wait, Mike?"

She had not expected to see him. Guy saw a
quiver go through her while die made her readjust-
ment.

"Nearing worked it out If ye want, hell tell
ye about it, but believe me they'll soon be as dirty
as the others.''
"Oh. Will you then — Mr. Nearing?"
He rose and came over to her. It was a rainy
winter afternoon and the place looked dark, with
all the lights turned out but one. Guy was of a
piece with the dreary griminess of the place: she
had caught him at work, with no time to remove
the ragged overalls or the smears of black on face
and hands.
"Ill go, will I, HUder? The kidsTl be waitin'."
"Oh ! Yes, Mike. You mustn't stay overtime."
Then the two faced each other. They looked
poles apart, Hilda, in her trim cleanness, with the
air of Command which instinctively clung to her
inside these walls; and a nondescript greasy work-
man, slouching up from his machine.
'Tour idea is so good. I wanted to help."
He did not answer. Just at that moment Guy
was not thinking of washbowls. He was thinking
of the Hilda whom he had learned to know only in
the last months, the most drastic of their separa-
tions. She knew then that her dignified pretense

THE WHITE MOTH 267

would not stand and she looked up piteously,
earnest eyes asking if she had again offended instead
of helping.

"Hilda!"

"Guy!"

And then she quivered a little, alive to the very
depths.

"I have something to say. It can't wait."

Then she knew, too, what was coming. . The
words for which she had waited so many years, the
words for which she was now unprepared. He saw
the look of fright suddenly controlled, he saw Hilda,
tall and calm among the rusty forges and power
hammers, put out a hand as if she would like to
sink to the floor and cry. But how could he offer
to hold her? He only hurried, so that she should
soon know what he had to tell her.

"I talked to you four years ago as the self-cen-
tered fool that I was and I don't know how it may
have defaced your ideas of love, or of me. I think
it was sacrilegious. I can't see any possibility of
asking you to forgive me, but I can't go on without
speaking. I've thought about it — for four years."

Hilda's eyes had filled with tears; it was a hard
thing to listen to those words. She leaned against a
column, trembling a little, even while she did not
take her eyes from Guy's.

"I imderstood, Guy."

"HUdal"

268 THE WHITE MOTH

''Not at first. It took me a long time. I — ^^I
know, too, what it is to be without self-respect.'^

"Oh!" It was a cry.

"But after a while I did imderstand. What you
did was bad, but you were not bad."

"Is that what you thought?"

It was the particular moment after she said that
which seemed to Guy the only real, stupendous one
he had ever known.

"That was the truth. I knew you."

"But Hilda, I thought — you felt the sort of
scorn — that would keep us apart forever. That's
why — " his hand waved toward the place about
them, the straining of the last months together rose
up in all its hopelessness.

"How could I scorn — you?"

Hilda raised her eyes to Guy's face. Her expres-
sion was very grave. She made no effort to change
it, nor to conceal. In the obscurity of the falling
winter twilight, he could still see the dear depth of
the eyes that said the thing which Hilda lived by.

"Hilda!" He waited, it seemed unbelievable to
say. "You cared!"

The deserted mill left them very much alone in
its shadows. The cold rain had begun to beat
against the windows; the watchman's echoing step
passed the door again and again. She had walked
straight to him, her arms held out; the top of her
brown head came just below his eyes. It was after

THE WHITE MOTH 269

be had held her a minute that he said, reverent,
appealing:

"Hilda — may I kiss you?"

Then they stood apart, his hands holding hers,
while he looked at her. "You understand, Hilda,
that I love you? That I have done it for years, and
didn't know? That you're behind my thoughts all
the time, the thing that makes light?''

"It's — that way I feel toward you."

"My God, Hilda!" He dropped her. hands and
backed away. "Let me look at you ! How can you I
People — don't have generosity like that. There
isn't any more I can say."

"Guy," said Hilda. She had always had an ele-
mental shyness about the words of passion. He
saw now all her reluctance to hearing him any
further in confession, or self-reproaches; the eyes
pleaded for silence. So while he offered it to her
they waited, listening to the rain that shut them in,
in a new place which stood for their future.

"Guy — there isn't any more we need say. I am
making enough for us both. Let us be married
now."

He did not move from his place, away from her,
among the greasy machines and the crowded
benches. He saw the deep fear of a girl who has
stepped beyond the boundaries that constitute her
life, in Hilda's eyes. Hilda was a girl. Guy saw
the single-hearted desire and the feds^ %sA "^^^

270 THE WHITE MOTH

shadows in her face left by unending patience. He
saw Hilda's hands that hung by her sides so very
stilly waiting before they would dasp his again.
His voice was scarcely audible.

"No, Hilda."

She moistened her lips, and that was all.

Guy waited to get control of his words. The place
seemed so cold that the world might have ended,
leaving them to wither there.

"I don't know if that will hurt you much. I
can't help it. I diould have thought of that before.
How can I marry you?"

"How — can you marry me?"

He came very near without touching her, a dis-
heveled figure with the sordidness of the shop about
him. "You rrmst see! I'm sorry to hurt you. I'm
so sorry I don't know how to go on. But Hilda —
my darling — what do you take me for? / can't
marry you — now!"

She did not answer him at all, trying to under-
stand, trying to force the understanding of his man's
point of view into her unhappy eyes. "It's not that
I — have — a better position?"

"Oh, partly that. Though perhaps if I were man
size, too, it wouldn't matter. But — I'm not. I
haven't made good. You're a man and I'm not."

"Must it matter?"

He straightened up furiously. "Yes, by God, it
muatl Hilda, I swear to you that if I married you

THE WHITE MOTH 271

now I could never look a human being in the face
again. Rotten! Worthless! Fired! Working for
fifteen dollars a week! And I allow myself to be
picked up and carried along by the chief of a depart-
ment because somebody's always done that for me
and I can't stand alone? Oh, Hilda!" His voice
was really agonizing.

Hilda's eyes were filled with tears.

"Oh there! I didn't mean to beg you to let me
off out of pity. I just mean to tell you that I
can't do it, dear. That's all. I can't do it." There
was finality in his tone.

The tears were imdried, but she stretched out
her hand quietly.

Guy's eyes were deeply alight. The thing that
had shattered Hilda had given an irresistible un-
petus to him.

"Sweetheart! I swear it won't be long! Can you
wait?"

It was not imtil long afterward, when Guy
thought of this word echoing, with all the words
that had passed between Hilda and himself, through
all his working hours, that he realized how it must
have fallen upon Hilda. But she made no motion
of despair, only after a moment with her head
turned away, turned back to him.

"As you want, Guy."

They were both shaking, the chief of department
and the factory hand, seen by \)[v^ N^^XsJossas^ ^>5s.\^^

272 THE WHITE MOTH

paused inquiring in the door. And as Miss Plaisted
turned to go, the workman in flannel shirt and mis-
fit overalls laughed imsteadily, looking into her
eyes.
^I'm going to fix up tiiis forge shop. Now."

CHAPTER XVII

Gut put his key in the lock at Mrs. Sterrit^s.
Inside the stuffy hall the children's coats hung in
a row, Jake Sterrit's lunch box stood on the little
oak table beside the baby's bonnet, up the stairs the
smell of heat and varnish greeted him. Inside the
bedroom there sprang into view the sagging bed,
the scratched bureau and his own suitcase, planted
by the waU in sign of transiency. Under the shriek-
ing gas, they leaped out in all their mediocrity, their
deadly usualness reminded him, as they had on
every night for the six months since James Near-
ing's death: "We're here! We're here! This is
where you live!"

Guy scarcely saw them. He flung his hat in a
comer and dived for some sheets of calculations,
left unfinished the night before. He tipped the
scratched oak chair against the bed beneath the gas*
light and became absorbed.

Guy had been that day for a conference with
Anson Boyce, the first since the one, almost six
months ago, when the manager had given ungra-
cious permission for him to try the forge shop. Guy
had had to confess to a f eelin;^ oi \I^^\^1b^asscL\^^3»

27%

274 THE WHITE MOTH

it, the other had such good reason to distrust him
and he found himself, with a man of such opposite
temperament, at his very worst. The first sentences,
in fact, had not been propitious.

^'Nearing, what does Mike tell me about your
stirring up trouble m the forge shop?"

The manager swung around in his swivel chair.
He gave always, in Guy's eyes, the effect of unnec-
essary emphasis of his superiority. There would
have been an explosion in other days. Now there
was a short silence.

''There are certain things that ought to be done
at the forge shop, Mr. Boyce, if you want the men
to work there without trouble. Shall I explain
ihem?"

"Explain, if you like."

It was as little receptive an audience as any man
could hope to have. Undoubtedly, Guy was the last
advocate that the forge shop should have selected
for its grievances. Yet it had no other.

"You are having unnecessary accidents, and un-
necessary slowness because the men are dissatisfied.
They haven't yet thought of striking — ^"

Boyce looked up quickly.

"But they are already organized in xmions and
they will strike imless the shop equipment is
brought up to date, and they're treated witli as real
efficiency as possible."

^'Efficiency synonymous m\k "^^V

THE WHITE MOTH 275

"Pay too. Don't you think morale depends on
more than money?"

It may not be obvious, but that answer was a
triumph for Guy. He had thought of knocking
Boyce from his chair.

"So you think the forge should be completely re-
fitted. And how can I know what other demands
I won't find on my back when I've consented to
that?"

"I don't see how you can know. You don't work
in the forge shop. It seems to me you'll have to
have a committee of men from there and talk
things over. Let them help decide shop policies."

"Nearing, do you intend to make us trouble?"

The declaration of attitude was made : Boyce was
as nearly angry as Guy or any one had ever seen
him. Nor was Guy unstirred. He thought of
pointed insults that would have done his heart good.
Then his lips curved in an unresisted grin that had
every right to cause the other man anger. Guy had
thought of the only good joke for six months.
"What would Hilda do?"

"I mean, Mr. Boyce, to say that production de-
pends on workers as well as on machines. That
you've got to give some real consideration to their
treatment whether you're asked to or not. And
I think I have as much capacity to see that as any
man."

Boyce's pencil came out. He made chedsaA^ss?^

276 THE WHITE MOTH

and very angular all the way across the paper befwe
be permitted himself to speak.

^Tou may have some justification. But I am
not prepared iot the present, to listen to any ex-
traneous suggestions that you may make. If you
want a job in the forge shop, stay on it."

His gaze almost swept Guy bodily to the door.
Any Swede in the forge shop would have gone,
leaving workmen^s representation to brew for an-
other year. James Nearing's son stood still, and
said:

'TouTl have to see presently, Mr. Boyce. It's
a question that can't be dropped/'

Before the interview ended, Boyce saw. On
painstaking proof of the number of accidents, the
time spent by different workers on their operations,
the reasons for delay, he granted that his workers
were complicated machines, not working well.
Boyce, who beside James Nearing had been young,
was, beside Guy, one of the old school. He had
no patience with the man who could not rise as he
had risen, by persistence undeviating and some-
times hard. It was only at the last ditch that he
gave in, some ultimate antagonism to James Near-
ing's son giving strength to his disbelief.

And now Guy was at home, properly commis-
sioned to go ahead and do, for pay, the thing that
had occupied his spare hours. Boyce had not been
lavish, his virtue was justice rather than generosity.

THE WHITE MOTH 277

But he was willing to make the most obvious im-
provements suggested by a committee of the men.
He was willing to order an expert study of the
shop, what it lost by uncomfortable conditions; he
was willing to give Guy a trial in some very em-
bryo position leading to that of personnel manager.

Guy tipped down the chair, ultimately, when the
calculations were finished and stared absently
around the room. His eyes lit on the suitcase and
almost unconsciously he picked it up and slimg it
inside the closet. Closing the door, he seemed to
glance around for the first time at the marble-
topped table, the pink wall paper and the sooty
shade.

'We're here,'* they challenged. * We're here!
This is where you live!" Guy cocked an eyebrow
at some memory, just evoked. "I don't care where
I live," the passing Swenson heard him remark
aloud. "I'm busy." The rest of the soliloquy^
Swenson did not understand so well for he called out
laboriously, "What do you mean, 'Hill'? There
ain't nobody by the name of Hill in this house."

The next months were full ones. The forge shop
was partly rebuilt, the windows were cleaned and
new ones put in, the ventilation improved, and a
forge blowing system installed; safety devices ap-
peared, likewise special baths for tempering, and
chemical testing facilities. The work at the forge
shop became unbelievably easier andctej^s^^^. \K$»k

278 THE WHITE MOTH

would not have liked it, but Mike had retired after
an attack of bronchitis^ caught in the draughty old
shop; Jinuny Doane, once of the stock room and
now returned from Pittsburgh, was now in charge.
Jinmiy admitted, as did Boyce, in the end, that the
work went so much easier and quicker that it was
only right for the men to get more pay.

Guy was by this time a member of the black-
smiths' helpers' union, organized sometime since in
the Cutlery Works, but even the union seemed not
to solve all problems. He began to hark back to a
scheme jumped at many months ago, when Guy
had a habit of jumping at things and abandoning
them. Why not representation for the workers
when some of the bigger problems are decided?
Some share in the responsibility that makes work
worth while?

It was not an idea to propagate unconsidered, and
Guy, testing its significance, questioned Jinmiy
Doane.

"They's strikes everywhere else, I suppose ye
know,'' Jimmy had been complaming.

"What do the men want?"

"Pay."

"We've just secured a raise."

"Then more pay."

"Is that what you want, Jimmy?"

Jimmy, since Guy was now quite his equal, be-
came cautious.

THE WHITE MOTH 279

"And it's nothin' at all they ought to have, bad
'cess to 'em. Lazy devils every one, and I'd fire
them if I had my way."

Smythe was no more illuminating. **What can
you expect?" said Smjrthe blandly. "Our work is
not very important. I think we are very well
treated."

Smythe was a relic of the old times. He spoke as
James Nearing would have done. There had been
no feelings of oblivion in James Nearing's day. He
had puttered around the forge shop on terms of
friendly equality with Mike Moran and his dozen
workers. They had belonged to the same church;
when their wives were ill Mrs. Nearing went to see
them, half friend, half feudal lady.

Anson had changed that. It was under him that
the factory had expanded and he was the leader of
its systematization and growth. Boyce was not
friendly with the men, he had no time. In spite of
his justice, people admitted in the manager a strain
of hardness. The old democracy evaporated while
he paid no heed. Encased in his office, he kept the
machine rigidly at work and the murmurs which
sounded menacing in Guy's ears were, to him, the
negligible bickerings of the unfit.

"I don't mind your conferring with them. You
seem not to have done any harm."

That was the most he would concede to his new
personnel manager. And he did not knoi^ i^^t \^ss^

280 THE WHITE MOTH

much comradely adjustment of little difficultiee he
was indebted to the man who 'Vas not fit for the
factory."

It was Hilda's little domain which was imtouched
by the general shadow. Hilda had never dealt in
superiority and inferiority. James Nearing's demo-
cratic spirit lived unblighted in her office. In view
of that lustily floxuishing organism, organization
seemed absurd. So Guy approached Hilda in the
home-going crowd.

He did this seldom. It is somewhat difficult to
know on what footing to see a woman whom you
have refused to marry and whose usual place is in
an office, siurounded by inquisitive subordinates.
It was a thing known to Guy and very mysterious
to Hilda that, the less he kissed her, the straighter
work would go.

It was a May afternoon and there were reasons
enough for their being together, but their admowl-
edgment of it was only a quick flash of the eyes.

Miss Mahoney and the girl from the advertising
room were just behind them. The home-going
parade was not censorious of office talk, only of per-
sonalities, so he said directly:

"About shop organization. You know we've been
trying to see how we can arrange a square deal for
our men without bankrupting the shop. I can't see
but one way, Hilda. Hand over some responsi-
biUty."

THE WHITE MOTH 281

"What would they want of it?"

"Well, Hil, I know how I felt. Ignored, stepped
on, no way of being heard except bitmg oS my nose
to spite my face — which is getting fired."

"Oh, Guy!"

"I hated all bosses and everybody ahead of me."

"It isn't that way in my office."

"Maybe not in yours. You're rather perfect"

"But I've never found it that way since I've been
working. When your father brought me here the
Works was like home and we were all friends. Do
you know, I believe he found it that way too. I
always thought that Mr. Nearing, here, was like a
man in his own house."

."Perhaps." Guy, walking silently by her side,
had a fleeting glimpse of James Nearing in the
chocolate colored mansion, subdued and wistful, not
at home. The ray of light on a person he had never
really known, struck him with pathos. Yet he in-
sisted.

"But there's really something there, Hil. All
that's melted away without our knowing it. And
workers miss it. Don't you see people are humaii?^*

They were alone now, by a lilac bush that shad-
owed the comer of Hilda's street. She had turned
away at that last plea of his and when she turned
back he saw tears in her eyes.

"I see."

"My darlingi"

282 THE WHITE MOTH

"Oh, Guy, it was you who weren't gomg to!''

'TEil, you're not going to wait. You understand*
111 make good before youVe had time to think
about it much oftener."

"It's aU right, Guy.''

After that she tried to help him, not understand-
ing, acknowledging with surprise the seamy side of
work which he, and not she, was now strangely fitted
to interpret.

And when he did not see her, because the press
of work was too great, Guy could alwajrs have the
company of a picture of Hilda evoked from
memory.

He had so many of them, he who had spent his
childhood beside her. Hilda in a pink and white
checked dress, playing marbles opposite him. Hilda
with a long brown braid over her shoulder, swinging
home from school; Hilda on the top step of the
porch, doing algebra of a spring evening; Hilda in
a canoe — !

Looking them over, one by one, in the minutes
which caused no interference with work, a remark-
able thing happened. Guy began to know Hilda.
It astounded him to see how violently he would
have gathered her to him without understanding.
Now, through night after night, and day after day,
he put together the disregarded memories. Hilda
would be happy some day because of this. To be
known as well as loved, is a thing hoped by few

THE WHITE MOTH 283

women. Strangely enough, it was in these mo-
ments, rather than in any of the years that had
gone before, that Guy wondered how Hilda could
really care. Catching glimpses of her, unconscious,
at the work that was so much a part of her, seeing
her with Boyce, two competent, well-matched fig-
ures, sharing their views like equals, he wondered,
and was gripped by a terrible urge to haste. Per-
haps there was an end, even to Hilda's power of
waiting.

One sprmg day, more than a year after that in-
terview in the forge shop, Guy had been walking by
the riverbank. It was sometimes a perilous place
to walk because of memories evoked, but on this
Sunday he felt he had a right to it. There was to
be an interview with Boyce the next week in which
the plan for workmen's representation would be
finally presented. Much depended on that plan. It
was true Guy felt that it was the only way to keep
the factory on solid ground amid a threatening fiood
of labor troubles. But there was more than that.

Guy's position was still an anomalous one, grow-
ing in importance, but not quite acknowledged
either in salary or prestige. This new plan would
mean a complete reorganization of the factory. The
personnel manager would become not only a per-
manent figure, but one of the most important ones.
Obsessions about superiority and inferiority aink
away from a man who la erv^o^si^ m ^^^^«- ^^^»^^^

284 THE WHITE MOTH

was no longer burdened with the idea that he must
be Hilda's equal in position before he could marry
her. Yet he was indulging, this afternoon by the
riverbank, a certain bo3ash anticipation. Next
week, when he went to Hilda, it would be to offer
her, in the eyes of Cato^ as much as she offered
him. The air, today^ was alive with the touting
of young voices, the couples were paddling home in
the early cool of the May afternoon. Beyond him,
at the turn, he saw the brown eddies of the quick
water and further, through the yellow leaves of the
birches, the still stretch where a canoe could be
moored at the bank, where one had been moored,
many years ago while the cows lowed and the bell
tolled for prayer meeting.

"Why, Guy Nearing! You? In such a place?"

He had approached the boathouse where the
couples were already disembarking. On the float,
in an orchid colored dress, Elsie Bauerman unfurled
her parasol, with Horace behind her.

"Run away and play, Horace. Guy'll see me
part way home. Or shall we go home?" she asked
when Liggett had turned slowly away, with his ob-
serving smile. "Can't we push off this canoe and
slip away around the curve? I haven't seen you
for a long time, Guy."

"Elsie, I — I can't."

"Business?"

He did not answer her. Ekie) with a hand on his

THE WHITE MOTH 285

arm, drew him slowly along the path under the
bu'ches. "How is the moon, Guy?"

"Elsie, how are youf"

"I'm going to marry Horace, I think." There was
a little silence. "But maybe I won't. Today's a
holiday. Let's nobody get married today. What
did you say about the moon?'*

"Do you thmk I can fly?"

"I don't know." His words had been sober and
she turned on him with the full, intimate glance of
years ago. "Come this way. You smell of cutlery."
And under the tree shadows she turned to him with
a spark in her eyes. "It's a rather nice Sunday.
And that river makes a little secret gurgle when
Horace lets you sit still to listen and I can't re-
member whether I was ever seventeen or not. Can
you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, you can fly, Guy! I saw it."

He put his head down to kiss her hand. ^^I'm
sorry."

Elsie's fingers, removed, left a greater feeling of
intimacy than if they had been in his.

"Maybe you wUl be sorry -^ for turning yourself
into an Anson Boyce. You like it, do you? It
wasn't Anson Boyce I asked to fly."

"I didn't turn myself. I was."

They had learned to say too much during silences.
This one was clamorous.

286 THE WHITE MOTH

"Don't come back some other time. It's now I
want to fly."
"Good-by, then."
"Good-by."

CHAPTER XVIII

The May air was warm as Hilda left the factory.
Up and down the streets of Cato the mothers were
wheeling their baby carriages. On the lawns where
the pansies were already set in their circular beds,
children skipped rope and played tag. The new
leaves still left the skeletons of the maples visible:
the tall, dappled forms of the sycamores stretched
half-clad boughs against a blue sky.

Hilda, walking slowly toward the dapper part of
the town where the Plaisted bungalow lay, suc^
cumbed to a sort of lassitude. It seemed so very
often — she had traversed that same way, to work
in the morning, from work at night. There was a
time when it had not been monotonous, but that
was in the very early days when, with all the en-
thusiasm of undriven youth, she had kept house in
the stock room. She had been a working woman
a long time now.

Out of caprice she turned down a street she did
not usually follow, and was hailed from a bungalow
porch.

"Oh Hilda! You look awfully trig and business-
like! Why so purposeful?"

28n

28S THE whiM Moth

"Going home, Elsie/'

''What's the hurry? Come up here and chat a
minute. Would you have fresh tea?"

"How dainty you look yourself I You can wear
slippers all day, can't you?"

Elsie laughed, stretched in her long porch chair
beside a deserted tea table. "To walk from the
porch to the sitting room. Tell me, Hilda, is work
nice?"

Hilda had taken her place opposite, her straight
figure in dark blue serge a strong contrast to Elsie's
beruffled slimness. The contrast between the two
had always been notable. And because of that there
were scarcely two women in Cato who saw each
other less or understood each other more intimately.

"Work is satisfying." Hilda leaned back while
the late sunlight struck her gold brown hair, dvei;
which she ran a weary hand.

"Ah, is it now?" Elsie was watching thd bther.
"Yes; take oflf yoiu^ hat. I wish I were your type r-*
gaining distinction as you grow older."

"Oh, Elsie ! But I was stodgy."

Both were lapsing into the inevitable, if imwill-
ing, intimacy of those who have known each other
from childhood.

"It may come out the same in the end," mused
Elsie, talking count, in the simlight, of every con-
tour of the other woman's face, every line of her
£gure. "Twelve years, isa't it, Hil? Assets: for

THE WHITE MOTH 289

me^ a husband; for you, an independent position.
And now we're starting out even."

"Starting even?''

Elsie leaned back^ watching the robin on her in-
finitesimal lawn. "For settling down as a married
woman in middle life, I don't know but your record
is a^ good a basis as mme."

"Oh, Elsie, do you think you're romancing in the
schoolhouse orchard at recess?"

"ThaU wasn't romancing." Elsie smiled remi-
niscently. "That was planning."

Hilda was silent. No use for her to pretend be-
fore this woman, of all others, that she had planned,
in the schoolhouse orchard, anything but matri-
mony. The rest of Cato might know Hilda as an
independent woman against whom no whisper of
such a thing was ever breathed. Not the girl who
had once wanted the same man. They did not
mention the man, however. No matter what sub-
jects were laid bare between those two, none of them
was ever Guy Nearing. Elsie said, twitching her
slipper:

"I'm marrying Horace Liggett."

"I'm very glad, Elsie. You'll be happy."

"As for that — one's had one's first fling at it.
Horace is my sort." She looked up with an amused,
meaningful glance at Hilda. "At that he's not such
a good catch as Mr. Boyce. Joke on ma "

It had been assumed iot mda'j ^^wc^ ^^ '^ ^''^

290 THE WHITE MOTH

it a joke for any man to like Hilda was no insult.
Hilda responded calmly:

"I relinquish the credit."

'Is that so?" Mrs. Bauerman looked more
closely at her companion. The one quality never
attributed to Hilda was inscrutability. Yet there
was no tightening of the lips nor gleam of the eye
to show that she secretly gloated over Anson Boyce.

*Tou'd better accept, Hilda. It's a good solution."
Elsie regarded her with narrowed lids. 'Tou're
coming out a length ahead and I congratulate you.
We've both borne up pretty well — considering."

That last word of Elsie's was the only telltale
one. She lowered her eyes quickly, nor did Hilda
look at them. No need for that between these two.

"I'm almost jealous of you," said Elsie. 'Tou
must have had a good deal of fun, arrivmg where
you are. Bauerman wasn't fun. Wish I'd known.
How could you tell — at seventeen — that work
would be satisfying?"

"I couldn't, Elsie." They were silent.

"Why, look at Hilda, leaving figures for half an
hour to play with the most popular lady in town I
Has the office burned up, Hil?"

It was Janey Marks, with her inevitable baby
carriage, looking ten years older and many degrees
jollier than the other two.

"Don't be sarcastic, Janey; I want to hold Peggy
Ann/'

THE WHITE MOTH 291

Janey watched the process with the friendly
aplomb of a mother of four. 'She does pretty well
for an old maid, doesn't she, Elsie?"

"Old maids," said Elsie, with a rueful glance at
Hilda, "are the only people who stay young."

"Talking about staying young," said Janey,
throwing a blanket at Peggy Ann as. she relin-
quished her to Hilda's tender mercies, "did you. ever
see anybody change like Guy Nearing?"

"Oh," said Elsie, "is he stiU in town?"

"Why, gracious ! They say he's got a job at the
Works. Hashe, Hil?"

Hilda nodded, playing with the baby's hair. El-
sie, with an appraising eye on them, remarked,
"Did you ever see such a sky-rocket?"

"Oh Elsie, it isn't all Guy's fault. Janey had a
motherly charity. "He was brought up wrong."

"Too much Mr. Nearing, / say." Elsie was sharp.

Janey, shocked, refused to take the other side of
the argument. "Well, I think it's too bad. A boy
that started out so well as that just sinking out of
sight. I should think for his own sake he'd want
to accomplish something. Let Cato see he wasn't
a fizzle."

"There's Otto, Janey." It was Elsie who said
this, having glanced once more at Hilda.

"Oh, my goodness! Is it as late as that? Give
me the baby, Hil; I have croquettes to fry."

Janey manoeuvred the baby carnage. ^^^V&l ^ts^ee^*

292 THE WHITE MOTH

speed down Elsie's walk in pursuit of a bulky figure
across the street.

"Ot! Did you stop for the cucumbers?"

Hilda and Elsie faced each other for a minute in
the spring twilight. '1 would have changed with
you," said Elsie.

Hilda walked home alone in the deepening twi-
light. She was obliged to admit to lax hours like
this one^ sometimes. It was two years now since
her talk with Guy in the forge shop. The years did
not show, the office said, save in an added gentle-
ness. They wondered what kept Miss Plaisted
young. Sometimes Hilda wondered if it were all
a privilege to stay so young, so imfulfilled as she.
In a way, life had ceased to move for her since that
visit to the forge shop.

There had been, after that, one vital interview of
which she treasured the memory, mysterious yet
palpitating. It was some months after the visit to
the forge shop, when he and she stood together in
the thawing woods and he held her close.

"We can't do this often, Hil."

"Not even — "

"Why — dear, I didn't think there was anjrthing
in the world I knew more about than you do, but
there seems to be something. I mean — when I
kiss you I don't want to wait."

"Do I?"

"Oh, darling, you're not going to; I swear you're

THE WHITE MOTH 293

She was disturbed by his look, though not under-
standing. She realized that the thought of her, in
those early tense weeks, was almost an obstacle.
Yet she was happy, with a benignant calm, new
and miraculous. She watched Guy advance step
by step, and grew almost frightened to see how fast
he was coming to her. Then, though she under-
stood, she had to steel herself to the inevitable
phenomenon of a man so absorbed in work that not
even love can distress him.

He came to her desk, in formal office fashion to
tell of his projects one by one. They were quaint
little interviews, vivified only by a glance or two,
the intensity with which he waited for her appro-
bation, her ardor at each success. They signalled
each other in the home-going crowd — on her side
the look of solicitude, on his the quizzical raised
eyebrow: "Not yet but soon." Hilda was proud of
Guy. She was sure, not only because she loved him,
that he had found the real work. She watched his
advance along a road which she herself might never
have explored, with humility as well as joy.

But now and then Hilda was lonely. Such a
time was this spring night after a day when the
factory had been all agog with renewed talk about
labor troubles and with a scheme put forward by
the personnel manager to take care of them. She
had not seen Guy for a week. He had been closeted
with this man and that^ labot^t% «xA ^^vsNssstsss^

294 THE WHITE MOTH

heads. She knew they were all converted to the
scheme he had first conceived years ago and shared
with her at each of its amplifications. But tonight
Hilda did not care about representative councils for
workmen and employers, even though it might
mean life or death to the factory. She remembered
she had once cared and once taught Guy to care.
Tonight she was thinking of the plans in the school-
house orchard.

"Dorrie's gone on the river with Herb littlejohn,
Hilda. I thought I'd set your supper on the porch."
Mrs. Plaisted in her black and white spotted dress
was waiting under the honeysuckle. She and Mr.
Plaisted and Hilda formed the family now, with
Dorrie to exercise the privilege of youngest. Hilda
sat down at the little straw table while Mrs. Plaisted
rocked beside her with the Christian Herald.

"Mother — " this was after a silence, when Hilda
had put aside her plate, and the twilight had grown
too deep for faces to be clearly seen. '^Mother, you
don't feel you need me at home, do you?"

"Why, why — " the paper was laid down —
"what's the matter, Hilda?"

"Nothing, dear. I was just thinking — we're all
very comfortable now, and Dorrie — I don't think
nineteen is too young to marry."

"I want Dorrie to be happy," admitted her
mother as though it were an assent. "Hav© you
got ^lomething to tell me, Hildare?"

THE WHITE MOTH 295

Hilda reached out a hand to the older woman's.
They looked very quiet and well poised^ these two
tall figures, sitting at the door of the house they
had furnished and cared for together.

"I've been a pretty easy daughter, haven't I?
I've never had anything to telL"

Mrs. Plaisted rocked, quietly clasping the hand.
"I came to your door a good many times the night
you cried all night — when you came home from
the picnic with the salad bowl."

"That was long ago. Mother."

"I've always wanted you to be happy, Hilda."

The meaning Mrs. Plaisted gave to this phrase
brought a silence between them. Mrs. Plaisted
broke it suddenly:

"That reminds me. Anson Boyce telephoned.
Wanted to know if he could talk over something
with you tonight, but I wasn't sure — . He said
anjrway he'd see you in the morning."

Mrs. Plaisted spoke with the respect accorded by
all the family to Anson Boyce's messages. Hilda
smiled a little wearily. She had gained much re-
spect in Cato because of the admiration of a man
she could not satisfy.

The next day Hilda and Anson sat in the man-
ager's office. The years, which in the purchasing
agent showed in a greater gentleness, showed in the
manager sternly. Anson Boyce had been the sort
of man never really young. Tbkft V2k»s^^^^i ^Sksrjc^-

206 THE WHITE MOTH

him tlimt made hif iaee JQSt^ yet never j^^
H more aober and oflfee-wonL It Ughtened at mo-
menta like flieae, widi Hilda. There waa an atmo^-
I^iere betireen fheae tmo of confident friendahip
that k^ offiee life healthy for both of them. They
QX)ke the truth together becauae thqr eoonted it
worth while.

Anaon now puahed away hia pi^perB and begiui
to make checka while Hilda^ veraed in this notaticm,
amilingly noted their abe and frequency aa aymp-
toma of how determined Anaon waa.

^Aa to thia plan of r epreaentative eouncib — I
am obliged to admit that it seems not iDog^caL It
is drastic. I decline to think the labor situation so
serious as Nearing says. He has, I admit, shown
surprising ability in dealing with the men."

They say it was only he who adverted a strike
when we had all that trouble last year.'

'Tea. He had done — creditably."

'Then why not trust him this time?^

Boyce's eyes rested on the purchasing agent with
some inquiry. ''Do you happen to know him wdl
at all?''

"We were — childhood friends."

''Ob, that." The manager again returned to his
paper, with pursed lips. "I grant the special feeling
of obligation we both have — toward the memory
of Mr. James Nearing. Of course his son — well — '*

"If he should put this through, it would be the

»

w

THE WHITE MOTH 297

biggest accomplishment of any factory in this part
of the country!'*

"That is true. He has a good deal of resourceful-
ness" — check — "knowledge of people — "

"ReUabiUty."

The manager's pencil, poised, came down vio-
lently. "No, Hilda. I am sorry for being too con-
servative, but this is a big thing. It won't hurt
young Nearing to wait. I cannot trust him with
this plan at present."

The purchasing agent considered him. There was
no doubt about his determination, his real feeling.

"I differ with you, Anson."

"I'm sorry, Hilda." They regarded each other
somewhat ruefully. "I'm glad it isn't a personal
matter, Hilda. If you made it that — ^"

"I don't, Anson. You must follow your best
judgment."

She sighed. The noon whistle had blown; out of
the gate the swarming heads were bobbing. The
workers were coatless in the May air, their laughter
vibrant with the realization that opportunity was
only an hour long.

"Shall we go out too? Youll come to lunch,
Hilda?"

She nodded, rather absently.

''We'll wait just a 'minute for Nearing. He was
to come in about the council plan."

He did not see Hilda's starts ^sid \^ati^ Hf^ ^^^

298 THE WHITE MOTH

away a paper. "Oh, Nearing? Come in. Ill be
ready in a minute, Hilda.''

The man in the door glanced^ somewhat startled,
at the other occupant of Boyce's office. The man-
ager had an old-fashioned carefulness about using
his purchasing agent's Christian name before other
employes. As a matter of fact, their talks did not
usually take place in the vicinity of Nearing or of
the personnel department. But important discus-
sions being on foot now, he was being admitted
into the more formal intimacy of the chiefs.

He looked equal to it. The poise that comes from
mastery is always unmistakable. Even the office
boy, taking up a collection for boxing glloves, is dis-
tinguished from the mass because he has assumed
a job and knows how to do it. And this man had
more than mastery, had a certain resilience, a spark
of vivid youth that msde the manager suddenly
look colorless.
''Well, Nearing, I've gone into it carefully."
'Tfou can afford it, Mr. Boyce. You know the
increase the whole hardware trade has made in the
last years. If there is a war our business will go
by leaps and bounds. We can stand higher wages
if that were the only thing."
''I admit the plan sounds reasonable."
"More than that, Mr. Boyce. It's essential. You
don't realize it now, but there's going to be factory
iieorganization everywhere pretty soon. It's a little

THE WHITE MOTH 299

wrench for us now^ and some sacrifice^ but we have
a good bunch of men. I know them. I can answer
for their trying to give us a square deal.''

"Our competitors — "

"They'll be copying us sooner or later."

Boyce paused over his paper, face immovable.
There was no use arguing much further when he
looked like that. The evidence was in and he was
sifting it.

"In spite of that, I have decided that I cannot
see my way to taking up this plan."

Boyce made his final check and looked up: Hilda
had abeady looked. She got no personal gllance;
Guy's face turned bleak for a minute. There used
to be such moments, in the old Nearing house, when
she would have run from her chair to put her arms
around him.

"I can't convince you by any more argument, Mr.
Boyce?"

"I think not, Nearing. Now Hilda, shall we go?"

As she and the manager stood up together, Hilda
saw a real darkness spread over Guy's face. He
waited a moment in the doorway, watching Anson
pick up her coat: Boyce had forgotten his presence.
Anson, she sometimes thought, showed less friendli-
ness to Guy than to anyone in the factory. He
meant to be just, but some anciently rootqd preju-
dice kept cordiality away.

But Guy's gray eyes fiaahed. "XoM^^xiXA^ ^i^^

300 THE WHITE MOTH

to stay by that decision, Mr. Boyoe. Ill have some-
thing to show you."

^'Very wdL"

Guy stood aside to let them pass. Bjb eyes,
catching Hilda's, were desolate, with all their reso-
lution. "In time."

The matter was not referred to at lunch. Anson
was particularly gentle. Coming back, they loi-
tered in the May air, as was not customary with
them. The grass was exceedingly green in the river
lawn near the factory, and some children too small
to go to school were hunting the first violets.

"Hilda, I have sometimes thought you looked
tired these days."

"Work is a remedy, Anson." She smiled a little,
and so did he, they knew so well what they were
talking about.

After a pause he said astonishingly 'You're
happy, ffilda?"

"I am going to be."

Anson regarded her for some time. He looked
rather an alien figure in the hazy sweetness of the
May noon, watching her with that look that could
change so little, no matter what it had to say.

"I should have been glad to make you happy.
I — asked you once — ^"

"Oh Anson!" she cut him off quickly.

"I understand that that's all over. I knew very
800D after I had spoken. I am too old."

THE WHITE MOTH 301

"I never thought it!"

"Perhaps I have allowed you to adapt yourself
too much to my middle-aged atmosphere. I took
yoiu* companionship because it was so wholesome,
Hilda. But I am growing very middle-aged. Don't
grow with me."

She was sUent.

Boyce said after a while : "However far away that
other unknown man may be, I hope he knows how
much he is expected."

"He knows."

Anson sighed a little as they turned to walk side
by side toward the factory. He went with her to
the door of her office and there took her hand very
gravely.

"My dear," said Anson, with a little harsh note
that touched her heart, "don't wait too long."

There were tears in Hilda's eyes.

"I wouldn't have worried you by speaking today,
Hilda, except that I want to see you happy. I
thought if I reminded you that I — care — I might
help."

"I'm beginning to think I do need help, Anson."

They were silent by the door of her very prosaic
office, while the workers hastened in one by one and
took their seats at the desks, noting that the pur-
chasing agent could not be consulted just now, be-
cause she was in conference with the manager.

"I wish you could ask somethiiv^^ B3XAa.V

302 THE WHITE MOTH

^Letters, MisB FlaistecL And will yoa be in if
the Mun0on man comes this afternoon?^

"An«n— r

''Anything in my power!"

'The r^H-esentative eouncUs!"

Anacm's expreasionleaB face seemed to receive a
shock. Some tremor trava-sed it, a ti^taiing that
passed. In that minute Anson knew.

'Tell him,'' he said, and passed down the halL

So the Cato factory became a pioneer in a new
orda* of things and its manager was congratulated
and envied for the courage and foresight that had
leaped in the dark.

The sun blazed into Hilda's office, shining on the
brass handles of the filing cabinets and the bronze
hair of Miss Kelly bending over one of them.
Voices reverberated from the yard as a frei^t en-
gine backed to and fro. By her open door, Smythe
stood calling out questions, with a sheaf of letters
in his hands.

"You sent for me. Miss Plaisted?''

Not since a hideous time two years ago had Hilda
Plaisted sent for Guy Nearing. Miss Kelly glanced
up: all the office force turned to take note of their
former companion.

"Yes. Thank you, Miss Kelly. Not just im-
mediately, Mr. Smythe. I wanted to say — Mr.
Nearing — that Mr. Boyce has changed his mind
about the representative councils. He wants you
to go ahead with the plaa^/'

THE WHITE MOTH 303

Six excited heads looked up.

"I — congratulate you/'

"HUdarer

With all the heads at full attention he had taken
one frantic step toward her. Then, while the oflBice
still gazed through the open door at the backs of
Miss Plaisted and Mr. Nearing in conference about
the plans of a new system of workmen's representa-
tion, destined to make the name both of the factory
and Mr. Nearing, Guy stammered, Guy, who never
stammered in his life, babbled like any school boy :
"Hil! So you — will you — can you come out to
the river bank?"

CHAPTER XIX

The wordless period was not really ended. It
had been a period such as Hilda had never imagined,
for love in absence gives no intimations of it. Hilda,
who knew all the sacrifices of love, was a little girl
when it came to its privileged; she returned Guy's
kisses, dazed and humble. The bright patch of sun-
light had already left the grass on the riverbank,
there were dark shadows below the rocks that meant
the best part of the day was gone. Hilda raised her
head, her arms still clinging, Guy's coat still against
her cheek.

"Dear—"

There was a long pause, broken by neither — they
let the word sink in. As the first beginning of
speech, restrained, hesitating with pure joy, it was
like the gentle notes of a lone violin which starts a
symphony, the full music to come later.

"Put your head down again!"

His cry was sharp — Hilda laughed softly as she
obeyed the command. "It's only, I'm going to
think, some day, so hard about this that Mr. Near-
ing will get the message."

"Yes. He'd listen to you."

She put up her hand at that. It was taken gently

THE WHITE MOTH 305

and they sat in a silence, not of bitterness, while
the river made its constant sucking sounds among
the rocks. They let it speak, saying for them that
they had sat in this place before, that what had
happened since they sat so had been far other than
they promised and yet was not to be wept for.

"Suppose I tell you," said Guy, his eyes on the
dark ripples, "only one thing. It was you who did
it — Hildare.'^

He added nothing to the name. From the tone
of it Hilda understood as well as he that it was a
name surpassing endearments. For the past many
years it had been within Guy's right to use all the
most caressmg terms to any woman m the world
except one. He had, perhaps, used them to some.
But the only name he had never spoken had been
Hildare.

"You did it, Hildare."

To that the river sang the prelude and the deep
rushing music that shadowed and brightened the
story, making the words tragic and playful, true
and imtrue, and still a final harmony. While she
heard it, Hilda had been thinking, such joy-suffused
thinking as was possible, with her eyes against her
lover's lips.

"But now it's done. We start again. Even."

"Start even, Hildare?" Even when they sat so
close as to be indistinguishable in the coming
shadows he admitted that tho\i^tl\^.

306 THE WHITE MOTH

"Yes. I think it's only today that we're both
grown up. We've lived the same number of years.
We've learned the same number of things. It comes
out the same in the end."

"Hildear!"

"The same in the end."

"Even if one person's years were scattered over
the map all color and silliness and waste, and the
others were built one on top of the other in order?"

"They brought the same amoimt of wisdom" —
Hilda's smile was a little tremulous — "about —
both love and work."

"Hil, do you imderstand — I'm sorry. That's
what's kept me away from you all these years.
That's what's haimted me all over the earth. That's
what I was going to tell you when I was good
enough."

"Now you will never say it again, my dear."

They were silent a while, till he said very low.
"I guess you imderstand it with once speaking."

"I couldn't have gone without it, Guy. But, I
knew, you see. I knew that if the thing you did
was bad, you weren't. You have belonged to me
always. Whatever was in you, I have known."

"Have you known I was a fool?"

She smiled, utterly without care. The time had
passed when she must stand ready to contradict
and encourage on pain that he would be hurt. He
W&8 taking care of her now.

THE WHITE MOTH 307

"Whatever I have known about you, Guy, I have
known — smce lost we were sitting on the river-
bank — like this."

"Last — like this? Twelve years, Hildare?"

"It wasn't long."

She saw his face, very reflective, as they sat close.
'Tour waiting time is over too, dear, did you under-
stand? Your chance is ready for you. We are
going to work side by side."

"I'm ready, Hil." He gathered her hand to him,
pressing it gently against his face. "All these years,
Hildare. When you knew I was a fool. What did
you do about it?'*

"Loved you."

"You did, didn't you?" Her palm was against
his face. He placed slow kisses on it from wrist to
fingertips, without her being able to see his eyes.
At last he said: "Suppose you don't — remind me
too often about — why you love me. It might
make me conceited."

The river sang the postlude to that story. The
birch leaves against the sky were black instead of
sun-brimmed yellow. They heard the wind in the
trees and the evening thrush.

T^f

'

J

* 1

h

j

I

i

I

r

II

^

i

"N